GIFT  OF 
A.   P.   Morrison 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 
FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

FOR  HIGHER 
COEDUCATION 

BY 
ELY  VAN  DE  WARKER,  M.D., 

Commissioner  of  Schools,  Syracuse,  New  York 


THE  GRAFTON  PRESS 
NEW  YORK 

r  c  !Qo3^ 


Copyright  1903  by  THE  GRAFTON  PRESS 
First  Impression,  December,  1903 


GIFT  OF 


€0 

MRS.  EMMA  HART  WILLARD, 

Born  at  Berlin,  Connecticut,  in  1787,  who,  be- 
lieving that  American  women  were  in  need  of 
higher  and  broader  education,  founded  an  insti- 
tution of  college  rank  for  women  at  Waterford, 
New  York,  which  at  the  solicitation  of  the  citizens 
of  Troy,  New  York,  was  transferred  to  that  city 
in  1819,  and  became  famous  as  the  Troy  Female 
Seminary  and  spread  abroad  a  high  and  liberal 
culture  which  has  inspired  and  refined  thousands 
of  homes  throughout  the  land,  was  the  first 
to  write  upon  the  education  of  her  sex, 
was  the  author  of  many  learned 
works  and  died,  honored  and 
lamented,  in  1870,  this 
book  is  reverently 
inscribed  by 

THE  AUTHOR. 


M94409 


PREFACE 

THE  following  pages  were  written  in 
the  interest  of  the  higher  education  of 
women.  It  is  the  sincere  belief  of  the 
author  that  the  method  of  coeducation,  as 
realized  in  practice,  has  been  brought  to 
its  logical  conclusion.  The  commingling 
of  the  sexes  on  an  educational  basis  was 
at  one  time  a  matter  of  education  of  the 
higher  kind;  but  so  energetically  has  the 
idea  been  forced  into  college  life,  and  so 
deeply  have  thinking  people  been  stirred 
by  a  discussion  of  its  relative  merits,  or 
possible  dangers,  that  it  is  now  a  problem 
in  sociology.  It  has  got  beyond  the 
grasp  of  the  educator,  who  has  heretofore 
claimed  the  right  as  such  to  decide  upon 
its  merits,  and  has  passed  into  the  hands 


PREFACE 

of  those  who,  with  a  broader  and  deeper 
knowledge  of  human  life,  must  give  the 
verdict  of  its  fitness  and  utility  as  a  form 
of  education. 

The  writer  will  never  forget  the  pic- 
ture of  a  woman  who,  in  1819,  sought 
education  under  that  wonderful  educator, 
Emma  Willard.  This  woman  lived  to  the 
closing  decade  of  the  last  century,  and 
throughout  that  long  life  the  culture  there 
gained,  and  the  inspiration  to  always  seek 
the  true  and  the  beautiful,  never  left  her. 
The  high  ideals  acquired  there  sustained 
her  throughout  a  life  of  self-denial  and 
toil.  Is  not  this  the  best  that  education 
can  do  to  elevate  and  dignify  the  work 
that  lies  ready  for  willing  hands,  with  hope 
blossoming  perennially  in  a  sane  and 
healthy  mind?  A  few  more  years  will 
complete  a  century  since  this  woman 
sought  and  found  higher  education  at  the 
Troy  Female  Seminary.  Has  coeduca- 
tion anything  to  offer  that  will  equal  it  in 


PREFACE 

results?  Is  it  not  the  truth  that  higher 
education  for  women  has  fallen  back  a 
century  in  utility  and  fitness,  if  coeduca- 
tion is  to  represent  its  best  form? 

This  book  is  offered  as  a  document  to 
that  great  and  discriminating  public  to 
whom  must  be  referred  all  questions  of 
public  policy,  and  upon  whose  judgments 
coeducation  must  either  stand  or  fall. 

E.  v.  DE  w. 


[xi] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS  FOR 
HIGHER  COEDUCATION 


CHAPTER   I 

The  Commercial  Element  in 
Coeducation 

THE  commercial  character  of  coeduca- 
tion, considered  as  a  business  enterprise, 
cannot  be  brought  against  the  method  as 
such.  No  public  effort,  it  matters  not  how 
beneficent,  but  what  has  its  business  side, 
that  must  be  wisely  handled  and  fostered 
that  the  greatest  good  may  accrue  to  the 
philanthropic  enterprise.  When  it  is 

[1] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

claimed  tha^.ihe  idea  of  coeducation  was 
gradually  evolved  from  the  necessities  of 
the  people,  that  it  was  a  normal  develop- 
ment that  grew  out  of  the  social  complex, 
more  is  claimed  for  the  method  than  the 
facts  justify. 

Oberlin,  where  the  two-sex  college  orig- 
inated in  1833,  was  for  forty  years  re- 
garded as  an  eccentricity.  The  idea  did 
not  take  root  until  it  was  followed  in  the 
order  of  events  by  the  State  Universities 
of  Iowa  and  Wisconsin,  endowed  by  the 
ancient  Government  reservation  of  1787. 
The  great  grant  of  1862  had  but  little 
effect  on  higher  education,  probably  due 
to  the  disturbance  of  the  Civil  War,  until 
in  the  early  seventies  the  so-called  col- 
leges and  universities  of  the  West  were 
started  under  the  stimulus  of  the  grant. 
From  1833  until  1870  there  was  no  de- 
mand for  the  coeducational  college.  In 
the  East,  where  colleges  were  endowed,  or 
were  aided  by  private  gifts,  no  demand 
[2] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

for  the  college  for  both  sexes  existed  at 
all.  The  conclusion  is  a  fairly  reasonable 
one,  that  the  people  of  neither  section  was 
clamoring  for  the  coeducational  college. 
These  colleges  were  not  of  normal  growth, 
and  were  not  the  slow  accretion  of  public 
sentiment  in  their  favor.  The  method 
was  not  submitted  to  a  careful  test  of 
fitness  and  expediency,  but  suddenly,  by 
a  general  concurrence  of  feeling,  rather 
than  conviction,  it  sprang  into  existence 
throughout  the  West  and  the  great  Amer- 
ican experiment  was  declared  a  success. 
On  the  strength  of  it,  Doctor  Dewey,  in 
his  Boston  address,  made  the  assertion  that 
the  West  was  a  generation  in  advance  of 
the  East. 

The  motive  force  back  of  this  was 
simply  a  grant  of  10,000,000  acres  of  land 
rather  than  the  needs  of  the  people  for 
coeducation. 

It  is  not  asserted  that  it  is  wrong  to 
take  advantage  of  this  gift,  as  it  was  very 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

properly  made  to  encourage  education,  but 
it  was  not  made  to  promote  the  method  of 
education  that  resulted.  The  purpose  of 
the  act  of  1862  is  expressed  in  the  follow- 
ing preamble:  "To  teach  such  branches 
of  learning  as  are  related  to  agriculture 
and  the  mechanic  arts  in  such  manner  as 
the  Legislatures  of  the  States  may  re- 
spectively prescribe  in  order  to  promote 
the  liberal  and  practical  education  of  the 
industrial  classes  in  the  several  pursuits 
and  professions  of  life."  There  was  evi- 
dently no  intent  to  found  the  present 
coeducational  college  with  uncontrolled 
social  relations  as  a  coordinate  department 
of  the  training.  Young  women  had  a 
right  to  share  in  the  benefits  of  the  grant. 
The  attitude  of  the  promoters  of  the  two- 
sex  plan  said  then,  as  they  say  now,  if  we 
give  women  separate  colleges,  or  coordi- 
nate institutions,  it  will  cost  too  much, 
hence  the  college  for  both  sexes.  There 
was  money  enough  for  both  plans,  but 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

not  enough  to  found  colleges  and  satisfy 
the  greed  of  the  political  grafter.  This 
sacred  trust  was  bandied  about  between 
the  upper  millstone  of  political  chicanery 
and  the  lower  of  ill-advised  and  amateur 
educators,  without  shame  and  without  re- 
morse, so  far  as  known.  Enough  is 
known  to  warrant  the  assertion  that  if  the 
secret  history  of  that  grant  could  be  given 
in  detail,  after  each  State  had  received  its 
due  share,  it  would  form  one  of  the  most 
disgraceful  records  in  the  political  history 
of  the  West. 

Has  the  West  applied  the  proceeds  of 
the  liberal  grant  wisely?  This  is  what 
President  Jordan  says  about  it  in  his 
Popular  Science  Monthly  article:  "  It  is 
true  that  untimely  zeal  of  one  sort  or  an- 
other has  filled  the  West  with  a  host  of 
so-called  colleges.  It  is  true  that  most 
of  these  are  weak  and  doing  poor  work 
in  poor  ways.  It  is  true  that  most  of 
these  are  coeducational.  It  is  also  true 
[5] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

that  a  great  majority  of  their  students 
are  not  of  the  college  grade  at  all.  In 
such  schools  low  standards  rule,  both  as 
to  scholarship  and  as  to  manners.  The 
student,  fresh  from  the  country,  with  no 
preparatory  training,  will  bring  the  man- 
ners of  his  home.  These  are  not  always 
good  manners  as  manners  are  judged." 
President  Jordan  ought  to  know  what 
constitutes  a  good  college,  with  an  effi- 
cient faculty  and  effective  equipment  in 
libraries  and  laboratories,  of  which  these 
alleged  colleges  have  none.  He  ought  also 
to  be  an  excellent  judge  of  what  is  im- 
plied by  students  of  college  grade,  who 
fail  to  appear  in  the  student  body  of  these 
institutions.  Commercialism  cannot  be 
carried  further  in  educational  enterprise. 
That  the  people  who  have  been  respon- 
sible for  this  ill-advised  effort  to  realize 
upon  an  investment  are  not  unconscious 
of  their  mistake,  will  appear  from  the  fol- 
lowing extract  from  Professor  Slosson,  of 
[6] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

the  University  of  Wyoming:  "  The  other 
charge,  that  economy  was  the  dominant 
motive  in  establishing  coeducation  col- 
leges, ought  to  be  prohibited  under  the 
rules  of  the  Geneva  Convention,  because 
it  inflicts  unnecessary  suffering.  It  is  not 
only  false,  but  it  hurts.  Our  fathers  may 
have  been  mistaken  when  they  founded 
coeducational  colleges,  but  they  were  not 
stingy."  Why  could  not  Professor  Slos- 
son  have  been  consistent  as  well  as  gen- 
erous by  conceding  something  to  our 
fathers  in  Congress,  who  made  Wyoming 
University  possible  in  1862,  when,  at  that 
date,  the  paternal  relation  in  Wyoming, 
if  not  unknown,  had  but  little  to  do  with 
coeducation.  Business  considerations  have 
had  more  influence  in  founding  the  college 
for  both  sexes  than  any  other  factor. 
Numerous  extracts  could  be  made  from 
the  literature  of  the  subject,  proving  that 
the  segregation  plan,  while  desirable,  was 
too  costly  to  maintain,  as  it  would  require 
[7] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

a  duplicate  equipment.  The  objection  on 
this  ground  was  carried  so  far  as  to  allow 
young  men  and  women  to  take  the  phys- 
ical exercise  together,  as  was  the  case 
at  one  time  in  Chicago  University,  where 
economy  ought  not  to  govern.  To  the 
rank  coeducationist  it  has  always  been  too 
costly  to  make  coeducation  wholesome  and 
decent.  The  commercial  spirit  has  been 
the  ruling  one  in  establishing  colleges  of 
this  kind  in  the  East.  After  the  Legis- 
lature passed  the  enabling  act,  making 
Ann  Arbor  a  two-sex  college,  the  faculty 
objected  to  the  expense  caused  by  extra 
instructors  to  meet  the  demands  of  women 
students.  The  women  of  Michigan  raised 
$100,000,  and  women  were  admitted.  The 
same  sum  of  money  was  given  by  women, 
mostly  feminine  suffragists,  to  purchase 
the  admission  of  women  to  the  Medical 
School  of  Johns  Hopkins  University. 
Half  of  this  sum  subsidized  the  University 
of  Rochester,  the  raising  of  which,  says 
[8] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

Mrs.  Harper,  nearly  cost  Miss  Susan  B. 
Anthony  her  life.  Cornell  University, 
after  being  liberally  treated  by  a  generous 
benefactor,  condescended  to  admit  women. 
The  list  could  be  extended  further,  but 
enough  has  been  given  to  show  that  good 
business  enterprise  has  underlaid  the  whole 
superstructure  of  coeducation.  This  is  not 
written  in  a  captious  spirit.  Money  must 
be  had  to  promote  education  and  its 
growth.  But  it  is  stated  in  order  to  prove 
that  coeducation  in  the  offensive  form, 
which  is  said  to  be  its  best  expression,  did 
not  naturally  grow  out  of  the  necessities 
and  demands  of  the  people.  That  the 
demand  for  it,  and  the  money  which  pur- 
chased for  it  a  place,  came  from  the 
women  who  were  exploiting  the  equal 
suffragist  movement. 

The  standard  of  success  of  a  college 

for  both  sexes  is  the  realization  on  the 

investment.     In  other  words,  the  size  of 

the  class.    This  measure  of  success  is  en- 

[9] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

dorsed  by  all  who  have  approved  the 
method.  President  Butler  says:  "From 
1890  -  98  the  number  of  men  in  coeduca- 
tional colleges  increased  70  per  cent.,  while 
in  separate  colleges  for  men  the  number 
increased  only  34.7  per  cent."  In  the 
same  paragraph  he  admits  that  among 
communities  well  to  do,  separate  colleges 
for  women  are  flourishing,  "  chiefly  for 
social  reasons."  There  are  pecuniary 
reasons  why  the  number  of  young  men 
has  increased  in  the  mixed  college  over 
that  in  the  men's  colleges.  The  tuition 
fees  in  the  former  are  nearly  100  per  cent, 
less,  while  the  annual  living  expenses, 
taken  on  an  average,  are  30  per  cent.  less. 
(Report  Commissioner  of  Education, 
Washington,  1900,  p.  1926.)  Presidents 
Butler  and  Jordan,  who  are  presumed  to 
be  fair  men,  take  no  notice  of  such  an 
important  factor  of  growth,  but  endeavor 
to  lead  the  reader  to  believe  that  it  is  due 
to  the  general  popular  approval  of  the 
[10] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

method  itself.  Instead,  the  commercial 
spirit  has  induced  the  authorities  of  these 
institutions  to  offer  the  public  a  cheap 
article  in  the  way  of  education.  Ignoring 
governing  conditions,  as  stated  above,  the 
coeducationists,  with  an  air  of  boasting 
hardly  credible  in  sober-minded  people, 
call  this  progress,  success,  and  higher  edu- 
cation, based  on  large  classes  and  cheap 
fees,  and  the  matriculation  of  half -pre- 
pared boys  and  girls. 

Against  the  abandonment  of  the  coedu- 
cation method  in  favor  of  segregation  or 
coordination,  we  have  the  trade  spirit  pre- 
senting itself  in  opposition.  An  ardent 
advocate  of  the  method  alludes  to  the  fate 
that  overtook  Adelbert  College,  in  Cleve- 
land, Ohio.  Fourteen  years  ago  this  de- 
partment of  the  Western  Reserve  Univer- 
sity segregated  its  classes.  Of  course,  the 
result  has  been  a  commercial  failure. 
"  Adelbert  College  now  rejoices  in  the 
magnificent  number  of  206  male  students. 
[11] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

The  Women's  College  has  222  students. 
Thus  all  this  special  and  expensive  double 
equipment  is  maintained,  and  necessarily 
at  a  lower  standard  for  each,  for  two  col- 
leges of  only  200  students  apiece,  with  the 
sole  purpose  of  preventing  the  girls  from 
coming  in  competition  with  the  boys  in 
class-room  work."  This  bold  conclusion 
is  given  just  after  the  writer  had  stated 
that  both  received  the  same  degrees,  and 
did  the  same  laboratory  work.  ( New  York 
Sun,  August  10,  1902.)  If  the  claim  of 
popular  approval  was  justly  predicated  on 
sound  reasoning,  we  might  overlook  in- 
discretions such  as  this,  but  when  it  is 
pointed  out  that  the  mixed  college  is  com- 
ing nearer  to  a  self-supporting  stage  than 
the  college  for  a  single  sex,  serious  doubts 
arise  whether  it  is  education  for  trade  pur- 
poses or  for  culture's  sake.  A  college  that 
hopes  to  support  itself  from  students' 
fees,  or  one  that  strives  to  do  so,  ought  to 
close  its  doors  in  the  interests  of  humanity. 
[12] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

The  cost  is  yearly  growing  more  onerous. 
The  laboratories,  the  libraries,  the  increas- 
ing corps  of  instructors  and  professors, 
make  the  tuition  income  of  these  institu- 
tions appear  as  nothing  by  the  side  of  the 
aggregate  expense.  The  true  college 
spirit,  that  signifies  serious  work,  that 
gives  up  all  for  culture  and  training,  has 
so  enlarged  educational  equipment,  that 
the  larger  the  attendance  the  greater  the 
individual  cost ;  while  in  the  mixed  college 
the  larger  the  attendance  the  greater  the 
profit.  A  singular  feature  of  the  cheap, 
badly  equipped  mixed  college  of  the 
West,  is  the  misuse  of  the  word  univer- 
sity. With  resources  only  large  enough 
to  maintain  a  college  of  low  rank  for  un- 
prepared boys  and  girls,  the  university 
name  is  tacked  on  without  any  regard  to 
what  the  word  implies.  The  authorities 
of  these  institutions  cannot  possibly  be 
ignorant  of  the  scope  and  aim  of  a  uni- 
versity, and  they  also  must  be  conscious 
[13] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

of  the  fact  that  university  rank  is  im- 
possible to  them.  There  must  be  a  reason 
why  this  name  is  so  generally  misappro- 
priated. Here  also  the  trade  spirit  has 
left  its  finger-marks.  A  supposititious 
rank  would  appeal  to  the  uneducated  boys 
and  girls  from  whom  the  classes  are  re- 
cruited. The  people  at  large  are  ignorant 
of  college  or  university  organizations.  It 
might  safely  be  left  to  any  farmer  or 
mechanic,  who  has  an  ambition  to  have 
his  boys  and  girls  receive  an  education,  if 
the  name  university  did  not  have  more 
educational  significance  than  a  mere  col- 
lege, and  if  he  would  not  prefer  the  for- 
mer to  the  latter.  If,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
well  known  to  the  founders,  an  alleged 
university  is  no  better  than  a  college,  has 
not  the  name  been  appropriated  as  a 
trade-mark  in  a  business  enterprise?  The 
actual  founders  of  the  so-called  colleges 
and  universities  of  the  West,  the  Congress 
of  1862,  never  intended,  as  the  reader  al- 
[14] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

ready  knows,  to  found  institutions  to  be 
known  by  such  names.  On  the  contrary, 
they  were  to  be  trade  and  agricultural 
schools,  for  the  benefit  of  the  "  industrial 
classes."  Legislatures  of  the  States  to 
which  the  grant  was  allotted  had  no  power 
to  act  outside  the  terms  of  the  grant, 
although  they  were  given  power  to  use 
their  own  discretion,  but  always  within 
the  limitations  of  the  law  of  Congress. 
Under  the  conditions  it  is  not  an  unwar- 
ranted conclusion  that  these  institutions 
were  created  by  a  misappropriation  of 
public  money.  Had  they  done  better 
with  it,  the  offence  might  be  condoned, 
but  with  President  Jordan's  evidence 
as  to  the  character  of  these  institu- 
tions, it  is  painfully  evident  that  irrep- 
arable wrong  has  been  inflicted  upon 
communities  that  were  greatly  in  need  of 
good  education.  When  a  commercial 
spirit  invades  educational  matters,  it  is 
worse  than  politics.  Of  the  two  evils,  it 
[15] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

is  the  lesser  one  to  give  up  to  the  grafter 
a  percentage  on  text-books,  than  to  give 
up  an  entire  system  of  what  ought  to  be 
higher  education  to  an  abject  spirit  of 
trade.  It  may  be  objected  that  a  body 
of  men  capable  of  uniting  together  as 
trustees  and  faculty  of  a  college  could 
not  be  guilty  of  so  prostituting  a  sacred 
cause.  When  it  is  remembered  that  ten 
years  ago  scores  of  medical  colleges  were 
founded,  which  were  purely  private  and 
business  enterprises,  enabled  by  acts  of 
Legislatures  to  confer  M.  D.  degrees,  with 
faculties  and  boards  of  trustees  always 
made  up  of  the  best  men  of  the  locality, 
and  that  these  colleges  were  shams,  it  be- 
comes less  surprising  to  see  the  same  spirit 
active  in  the  creation  of  other  institutions. 
It  may  have  no  special  significance,  but 
it  was  in  the  West  that  these  inefficient 
trade  medical  colleges  were  more  numer- 
ously exploited. 

It  is  very  noticeable  that  in  coeduca- 
[16] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

tional  colleges  where  the  social  line  is 
strictly  drawn,  as  in  Rochester  University, 
Middletown,  and  Cornell,  there  is  a  small 
attendance  of  women  students.  It  is  in 
the  institutions  where  the  social  bars  are 
let  down  that  the  large  aggregation  of 
young  girls  is  to  be  found.  It  is  to  be 
hoped  that  the  faculties  of  these  institu- 
tions have  ignorantly  assumed  the  truth 
of  the  fiction  that  these  immature  and  un-* 
sophisticated  people  can  be  safely  given 
the  social  freedom  of  mature  men  and 
women.  It  is  a  charity  to  assume  that  the 
authorities  of  the  mixed  college,  on  such 
a  basis,  are  not  taking  advantage  of  one 
of  the  inherent  traits  of  young  girls  with 
a  view  of  attracting  large  classes.  One 
of  the  most  alluring  sides  of  a  young 
woman's  traits  is  her  fondness  for  the 
society  of  the  other  sex.  It  is  but  natural 
that  a  college  on  the  most  liberal  co-sex 
plan  would  attract  the  largest  attendance 
of  young  women,  not  from  any  spirit  of 
[17] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

wrong-doing,  simply  in  compliance  with 
a  physiological  law.  If  college  author- 
ities are  not  taking  an  unfair  advantage 
of  women,  they  are  at  least  satisfied  with 
the  results  financially.  To  satisfy  the 
growing  distrust  of  parents  and  guard- 
ians, they  invent  the  ridiculous  claim  that 
such  social  freedom  is  in  itself  an  educa- 
tion and  a  wise  preparation  of  the  young 
woman  for  her  after-career.  Young  men 
are  also  attracted  to  these  colleges  for  the 
same  reason  that  women  are,  and,  as  is 
proudly  pointed  out,  in  rapidly  increasing 
numbers.  It  cannot  be  denied  that  it  is 
good  business  policy,  the  result  of  a  liberal 
trade  spirit.  There  is  reason  to  hope  for 
better  things  when  it  is  remembered  that 
in  the  space  of  ten  years  the  number 
of  trade  medical  colleges  was  decreased  75 
per  cent,  as  the  result  of  public  opinion. 

Higher  coeducation  now  means  speed, 
not  culture.  It  is  the  outcome  of  the  in- 
tensifying nature  of  the  national  life, 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

which  finds  its  most  characteristic  expres- 
sion in  the  ruling  commercial  spirit.  It 
may  be  a  sad  thing  to  say  to  those  who 
reverence  learning  for  its  own  sake,  that 
the  most  typical  form  of  this  spirit 
is  found  in  higher  education.  There  is 
hardly  a  trace  of  it  in  primary  and  second- 
ary education,  unless  it  be  in  the  more 
than  liberal  expenditure  of  money  on  the 
part  of  municipalities  and  States  to  edu- 
cate the  children  and  youths.  This  is  an 
education  for  citizenship,  and  not  for  cul- 
ture. It  is  in  higher  education  that  the 
dominant  business  animus  rules  both  the 
methods  and  the  results.  It  is  made  cheap, 
but  price  is  nothing  without  speed.  It  is 
business  with  the  same  meaning  that  gives 
to  the  shipper  a  better  freight  rate  from 
Omaha  to  New  York  than  from  Buffalo 
to  New  York.  It  is  the  long  haul  as 
against  the  short  haul  in  education  as  in 
trade.  Harvard  University  already  allows 
its  students  to  specialize  in  the  direction  of 
[19] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

professional  work,  and  thus  cut  out  a 
year  from  their  liberal  training.  The 
senior  year,  during  which  so  many  young 
men  learn  to  find  themselves,  counts  for 
nothing  if  he  can  save  one  year  out  of 
eight  in  his  total  educational  work.  What 
Harvard  does,  many  other  colleges  will  do, 
also.  How  many  students  has  this  pet 
scheme  of  President  Eliot's  drawn  away 
from  other  institutions?  It  is  very  likely 
that  he  was  not  conscious  of  it,  but  he  was 
catering  to  the  lowest  form  of  the  trade 
motive,  as  we  know  it,  in  education. 

By  viewing  the  extreme  forms  of  coed- 
ucation as  business  enterprises,  an  expla- 
nation is  furnished  of  many  things  that  are 
difficult  to  understand.  These  institutions 
are,  almost  without  exception,  denomina- 
tional in  character  and  control.  They 
stand  for  education  as  far  as  their  means 
will  allow,  but  they  must  exploit  the  tenets 
of  the  religious  bodies  that  founded  them. 
The  central  idea  seems  to  be  to  educate 
[20] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

young  men  for  the  pastorate  in  these  so- 
cieties. This  is  well;  it  is  too  early  in  the 
twentieth  century  to  separate  religion  and 
higher  education.  It  is  better  to  combine 
religion  with  the  humanities,  than  not  to 
have  it  at  all.  But  it  is  religion  at  a  price. 
Higher  education  must  be  animated  by  a 
simple  purpose ;  it  cannot  be  made  to  serve 
two  masters,  and  to  serve  both  with  profit. 
Which  pays  the  price  will  depend  upon  the 
proselyting  energies  of  the  religious 
founders.  If  they  demand  more  of  reli- 
gion than  they  do  of  education,  the  latter  is 
reduced  to  a  minimum.  It  recalls  to  mind 
the  affair  of  Vanderbilt  University,  where 
the  professor  of  geology  was  made  to 
resign  on  account  of  a  little  book  which 
he  had  written,  entitled  "  The  Pre- Ad- 
amite Man."  The  trustees  imagined  that 
it  differed  slightly  from  the  Mosaic  ac- 
count of  the  creation.  This  is  not  an  ex- 
treme case.  Professor  Haeckel  teaches  at 
Jena  because  the  clergy  at  Berlin  would 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

interfere  with  his  freedom  of  investiga- 
tion and  teaching.  This  is  commonly 
called  intolerance  on  the  part  of  college 
faculties.  It  is  good  business  practice  not 
to  antagonize  any  of  the  sectarian  societies 
that  the  college  may  represent.  That  relig- 
ion should  be  an  agent  to  reduce  a  col- 
lege from  a  purely  educational  status  to 
a  business  enterprise,  is  a  matter  of  serious 
regret,  but  when  it  goes  further,  and 
allows  business  considerations  to  dictate 
the  method  and  kind  of  instruction,  the 
freedom  and  liberality  of  education  in  de- 
nominational colleges  are  placed  in  jeop- 
ardy. 

The  independence  that  ensures  the  truth 
and  liberality  of  education  is  less  evident 
in  the  mixed  college.  Women  are  more 
passive  in  religious  matters  than  men.  It 
is  doubtful  if  the  action  of  the  trustees 
at  Vanderbilt  University  would  have  been 
tolerated  in  Eastern  colleges  for  men  by 
the  student  body.  A  coeducational  college 
[22] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

could  be  handled  much  more  easily  in 
prompting  the  business  interest  of  secta- 
rianism than  a  college  for  men  only.  Col- 
leges of  this  type  have  a  double  burden  of 
commercialism,  not  the  least  of  which  is 
given  to  increasing  the  influence  of  the 
religious  body  which  it  represents.  There 
will  be  no  reform  in  this  direction  until 
the  State  takes  charge  of  higher  educa- 
tion, just  as  it  has  in  primary  instruction 
in  behalf  of  all  the  people.  Something 
may  be  said  of  the  direct  bearing  of  the 
trade  spirit  in  lessening  the  opportunities 
of  women  for  education  in  colleges  for 
both  sexes.  Sound  methods  of  instruction 
ought  to  allow  women  the  benefit  of  pro- 
fessors of  her  own  sex,  if  the  eternal  fit- 
ness of  things  is  to  be  respected.  Women 
stand  on  a  higher  plane  than  men  do  as 
instructors.  In  colleges  for  women  they 
have  proven  their  fitness  as  instructors. 
In  the  coeducation  college  she  is  given 
scant  recognition.  A  tabulation  of  the  sex 
[23] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

of  professors  in  colleges  and  universities 
is  almost  barren  of  women.  Taking 
Table  29  of  the  Report  of  the  Bureau  of 
Education  at  Washington  for  the  years 
1899  - 1900,  at  random  among  46  colleges, 
5  of  which  are  for  men,  there  are  600 
men  professors  and  instructors,  and  57 
women  in  like  positions.  This  is  the  fair- 
ness shown  to  women  on  the  part  of  men 
who  do  not  hesitate  to  claim  that  their 
method  is  the  only  one  that  gives  to  women 
a  privilege  equal  to  men  in  education. 
There  can  be  no  question  that  the  woman 
professor  can  get  in  closer  touch  with  the 
young  women  students,  both  in  sympathy 
and  instruction,  than  the  male  professor. 
If  there  was  a  fair  division  of  the  chairs 
in  colleges  where  there  is  an  attendance 
of  500  to  1,200  women  students,  the  gross 
social  license  that  has  disgraced  many  col- 
leges could  not  have  occurred.  Women 
professors  are  not  given  a  place  in  these 
colleges,  for  the  reason  that  young  men 
[24] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

would  find  the  instruction  of  women  pro- 
fessors irksome,  and  would  leave  for  insti- 
tutions where  men  professors  are  em- 
ployed. It  is  good  trade  policy,  which  the 
authorities  of  these  institutions  would  re- 
gard as  hardship  to  defend.  The  question 
is  a  reasonable  one,  in  view  of  the  facts, 
does  not  coeducation  cheapen  the  policy 
of  the  college  in  the  matter  of  instructors? 
This  cheapening  of  education  is  taking 
an  unfair  advantage  of  women,  it  is  dis- 
posing of  them  at  the  least  possible  cost, 
and  giving  them  the  least  possible  oppor- 
tunities, after  bestowing  upon  them  an 
alleged  education  of  the  higher  kind.  It 
would  cost  money  to  give  young  women 
professors  whom  the  college  could  not 
make  useful  with  men. 

One  more  matter  that  concerns  the 
commercial  idea  in  the  mixed  college,  is 
the  gift  of  scholarships  for  women  in  col- 
leges for  both  sexes.  In  Table  30  of  the 
report  referred  to,  and  leaving  out  the 
[25] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

University  of  Chicago,  the  Northwestern 
University,  and  the  University  of  Illinois, 
there  are  only  106  scholarships,  for  any 
of  which  women  have  no  more  rights  than 
men.  Women  attend  college  with  as  many 
personal  hardships  as  men,  and  with  many 
less  opportunities  to  earn  money.  Out  of 
that  scant  number  of  scholarships,  you  can 
count  upon  the  fingers  of  one  hand  those 
given  in  aid  of  women  students.  She  is 
educated  as  cheaply,  and  given  as  little 
help  as  possible  during  her  student  life, 
denied  all  chance  for  position  in  her  alma 
mater,  and  turned  out  upon  the  world  as 
a  sort  of  by-product  in  the  education  of 
men.  She  contributes  34  per  cent,  toward 
the  total  expense  of  the  institution  by  her 
tuition,  in  return  for  which  she  receives 
an  education  of  doubtful  utility  and  un- 
certain culture,  because  it  would  cost  too 
much  money  to  give  her  more. 


[26] 


CHAPTER   II 

The  Literature  of  Coeducation 

WE  have  only  two  criteria  by  which 
we  may  estimate  the  honesty  of  men, 
namely,  by  what  they  say,  and  by  what 
they  do.  Simple  as  this  standard  is,  by  it 
we  may  often  pierce  to  the  hinterland  of 
act  and  motive.  Apply  this  measure  to 
the  public  statement  of  those  who  are  in 
favor  of  the  education  of  the  sexes  in 
mixed  colleges,  we  find  a  mass  of  so-called 
literature  unique  as  emanating  from  men 
whom  by  courtesy  we  must  call  educated. 
It  is  of  such  a  character  that  it  forms  a 
serious  indictment  of  the  sincerity  of  its 
authors.  They  seem  to  have  made  a  fetich 
of  coeducation,  and,  like  a  jungle  priest, 
[27] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

fly  into  a  rage  when  its  right  is  questioned. 
A  man  who  is  sincere  in  his  convictions, 
who  believes  that  he  is  on  secure  ground, 
welcomes  a  discussion  of  his  postulate. 
Not  so  the  coeducationist.  He  is  intolerant 
and  abusive.  He  treats  a  serious  social 
problem  with  levity,  and  with  what  he 
evidently  believes  to  be  wit.  He  forgets 
that  this  is  not  an  age  of  intolerance,  but 
that  of  free  discussion.  He  is  misplaced 
in  the  order  of  time,  and  is  generations 
behind  the  spirit  of  free  thought  and  in- 
terrogation that  environ  him;  he  repu- 
diates the  first,  and  resents  the  latter.  He 
claims  supremacy  in  deciding  a  great 
question  of  sociology.  He  tries  to  obliter- 
ate the  laws  of  human  life,  and  calls  it 
progress.  And  yet,  his  aim  is  to  secure 
the  happiness  and  efficiency  of  an  army 
of  men  and  women,  and  he  asserts  his 
ability  to  do  this  by  a  common  education 
in  an  atmosphere  of  the  closest  social  rela- 
tions. Touching  this,  his  best  claim  to 
[28] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

respectability  is  the  fact  that  he  forgets. 
Humanity  cannot  be  made  happier  by 
being  ground  down  into  a  mass  by  the 
same  machinery,  neither  can  men  and 
women  be  given  the  same  point  of  view, 
the  same  interests,  by  social  relations,  how- 
ever intimate,  on  the  basis  of  a  common 
education.  £The  coeducationist  forgets 
that  men  and  women  are  at  opposite  poles 
in  the  ellipse  of  natural  lawTJthat  they 
touch  only  on  the  periphery  of  thought 
and  emotion,  and  that  they  are  merely 
gyrating  human  atoms  about  the  central 
pivot  of  sex,  differentiated  by  laws  of 
growth,  maturity,  and  intellection  that  are 
growing  stronger  as  our  modern  civiliza- 
tion gives  individuality  and  intensity  to 
life. 

It  would  be  amusing,  if  it  were  not  dis- 
gusting, to  give  at  length  some  of  the 
many  notable  examples  of  irony  and  sar- 
casm, mixed  with  a  peculiar  form  of  wit 
as  misplaced  as  hilarity  at  a  funeral,  flung 
[29] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

at  the  opponents  of  coeducation.  A  few 
examples  must  suffice.  A  first  place  in 
this  style  of  argument  must  be  given  to 
President  Butler,  of  Columbia  University. 
In  an  article  in  Collier's  Weekly,  for  June 
2,  1902,  "  It  would  need  the  pen  of 
Swift,"  he  says,  "  to  portray  the  absurd- 
ities of  those  who  resist  the  movement  to 
open  wide  to  women  opportunities  for 
higher  education."  This  quotation  gives 
point  to  another  method  of  impaling  their 
adversaries  on  a  point  of  false  logic.  If 
you  are  opposed  to  coeducation,  you  are 
opposed  to  the  higher  education  of  women. 
The  ridiculous  charge  is  at  all  times 
brought  against  those  who  only  ask  for 
sane  methods  in  education,  and  for  an 
even  chance  for  woman  as  against  man. 
It  is  manly  and  honorable,  however,  from 
their  standpoint,  to  falsely  charge  a  wrong 
motive  to  any  one  who  opposes  you.  Pres- 
ident Butler  continues:  "  They  are  quite 
beyond  Dooley's  reach.  One  who  is  blessed 
[30] 


FOE  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

with  a  sense  of  humor,  even  in  modest  pro- 
portions, is  unable  to  treat  these  argu- 
ments seriously."  The  narrow  strip  of 
States  lying  along  the  Atlantic  seaboard 
"  is  about  as  provincial  as  Honduras." 
The  ordinary  relations  between  men  and 
women  he  stigmatizes  with  rare  judgment 
as  "  artificial  and  absurd."  The  only  con- 
ceivable association  with  the  other  sex  are 
those  of  love  and  marriage,  "  anything 
else  is  bad  form,  or  distinctly  suspicious; 
this  seems  to  me  utterly  absurd,  and  that 
it  is  fraught  with  danger,  every  one 
knows."  It  would  be  better  for  President 
Butler  to  speak  for  himself,  but  it  would 
have  been  still  better,  before  writing  this 
last  sentence,  to  have  consulted  some  good 
and  wise  female  relative.  What  he  says 
about  society  here  is  false,  and  one  cannot 
resist  the  conviction  that  he  knew  it  to  be 
false,  and  invented  it  to  point  his  argu- 
ment. When  he  strikes  a  serious  vein,  it 
is  to  wave  the  whole  matter  of  "  solemn 
[31] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

arguments  "  against  coeducation  out  of 
court  with  a  high-handed  flourish.  "  But 
really,"  he  says,  "  these  are  all  dead  issues. 
The  American  people  have  settled  the 
matter."  This  settlement  is  peculiar,  and 
forms  one  of  the  conclusive  arguments 
resorted  to  by  all  the  friends  of  coeduca- 
tion. "  Fifteen  millions  of  children  in  ele- 
mentary schools  are  all  being  coeducated." 
Because  we  may  practically  say  that  all 
children  attend  primary  schools  and  live 
at  home,  therefore  the  great  American 
people  have  settled  the  fitness  and  utility 
of  herding  young  men  and  women  to- 
gether in  mixed  colleges,  where  they  live 
in  unrestrained  social  relations,  and  which 
our  diplomatic  president  says  "  is  the  f  ami 
ily,  the  natural  type."  There  is  space  for 
but  one  other  selection  from  the  effort  of 
President  Butler.  After  saying  that 
higher  education  for  women,  apart  from 
men,  is  disappointing,  and  stating  with 
fine  irony  that  his  mind  will  be  weakened 
[32] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

and  his  vitality  sapped  through  teaching 
women,  "  he  takes  rank  with  the  advocates 
of  the  Baconian  authorship  of  Shake- 
speare's plays,"  concluding  abruptly  in 
a  manner  that,  following  the  hilarity  of 
the  article,  appears  ludicrously  solemn. 
"  Meanwhile,  it  is  very  proper  to  re- 
mark in  conclusion  that  the  Columbia's 
plan  of  the  separation  of  men  and  women 
during  the  undergraduate  course,  with 
equal  opportunities  for  them,  and  a  com- 
mon opportunity  in  graduate  work,  meets 
admirably  our  social  and  industrial  needs 
and  conditions."  This  is  not  coeducation 
in  any  sense  in  which  the  word  is  used 
in  this  book,  nor  in  any  sense  made  use 
of  by  President  Butler.  In  the  light 
of  the  concluding  paragraph,  can  any 
one  understand  why  he  wrote  that  arti- 
cle, and  why  he  infused  into  it  the  tone 
and  spirit  that  it  shows?  President  Butler 
has  been  given  more  space  than  he  was 
entitled  to  by  the  merits  of  his  article,  be- 
[33] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

cause  he  so  completely  epitomizes  the  stock 
arguments  of  all  who  favor  the  coeduca- 
tional idea,  and  his  style  of  presenting  the 
subject  is  an  excellent  example  of  the 
method. 

Another  author  who  has  contributed  to 
the  literature  of  the  subject,  is  President 
Jordan,  of  Leland  Stanford  University. 
He  aims  to  be  learned  and  philosophical 
where  President  Butler  was  frivolous  and 
jocular,  but  they  stand  in  one  respect 
upon  common  ground,  as  neither  has  the 
courage  of  his  convictions.  Several  refer- 
ences have  already  been  made  to  his  Pop- 
ular Science  Monthly  article,  but  he  is 
called  up  here  as  a  witness  for  the  indict- 
ment brought  against  the  advocates  of 
what  they  are  pleased  to  call  the  American 
idea.  After  a  long  statement  of  plati- 
tudes which  were  never  disputed,  he  then 
draws  a  picture  of  a  mythical  college 
which  is  to  meet  the  "  varied  needs  of 
varied  men,"  which  is  to  be  the  future 
[34] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

college  for  both  sexes  in  common.  Where 
such  a  college  is  located  he  omits  to  inform 
us,  but  it  is  not  the  Stanford  Junior  Uni- 
versity. On  the  whole,  he  talks  in  a  very 
sane  way  on  the  modern  college,  and  it 
is  not  until  he  touches  upon  the  question 
at  issue  that  he  allows  the  prevailing  flip- 
pant manner  to  intrude.  "  Shall  women 
be  taught  in  the  same  classes  as  men?" 
he  asks,  and  answers  that  it  "is  a  matter 
of  taste  or  personal  preference.  It  does 
no  harm  whatever  to  either  men  or  women 
to  meet  those  of  the  other  sex  in  the  same 
class-room.  But  if  they  prefer  not  to  do 
so,  let  them  do  otherwise.  No  harm  is 
done  in  either  case,  nor  has  the  matter 
more  then  secondary  importance."  If  co- 
education can  survive  a  blow  like  that  it 
has  a  large  amount  of  reserve  vitality,  but 
this  appearance  of  indifference  to  the 
burning  question  that  is  agitating  hun- 
dreds of  colleges,  real  or  putative,  appears 
to  result  from  his  low  opinion  of  educated 
[35] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

women.  "  She  may  know  a  good  deal,5* 
he  says,  "  but  she  can  do  nothing."  If 
women  are  educated  alone,  the  "  tendency 
is  toward  beauty  and  order,  while  men 
have  this  obscured  by  the  realities;  but 
educated  together,  the  women  confer 
beauty  and  order  upon  the  men,  while  the 
latter  give  beauty  and  fitness  to  the 
women.  There  is  less  of  silliness  and 
folly  where  man  is  not  a  novelty."  Again 
he  says,  "  that  in  coeducational  institu- 
tions of  high  standards  frivolous  conduct 
or  scandals  of  any  form  are  rarely 
known,"  and  yet  on  the  very  next  page 
he  tells  us  of  the  evils  and  scandals  that  re- 
sult because  women  are  not  lodged  in  dor- 
mitories, but  with  fine  distinction  he  states 
"  that  this  is  not  to  be  charged  to  coeduca- 
tion." He  forgets  that  there  is  not  a  pop- 
ular college  for  both  sexes  in  the  country 
that  can  give  dormitory  accommodation 
for  but  a  small  part  of  the  women  stu- 
dents. President  Jordan's  statements  have 
[36] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

been  freely  quoted  elsewhere,  to  which  the 
reader  is  referred,  but  enough  has  been 
given  to  show  the  tendency  toward  rash 
assertion  and  indifference  to  facts,  and  the 
prevailing  tone  of  flippancy  that  mars  and 
weakens  all  that  is  said  by  the  advocates 
of  coeducation.  All  things  considered, 
President  Jordan  has  written  the  best 
paper  upon  the  subject  that  has  yet  ap- 
peared. 

There  appeared  in  two  recent  numbers 
of  the  Independent  an  article  by  Mr. 
Henry  T.  Finck,  on  "  Why  Coeducation 
is  Losing  Ground."  His  position  was 
fairly  stated,  his  facts  were  unassailable, 
while  its  tone  was  moderate.  It  was 
highly  proper  that  an  article  of  this  char- 
acter should  elicit  a  reply.  This  was  made 
by  Prof.  E.  E.  Slosson,  of  the  University 
of  Wyoming,  and  appeared  in  the  same 
number  of  the  Independent.  The  reply 
was  in  the  prevailing  type.  When  he 
failed  to  give  his  argument  validity  by  his 
[37] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

facts,  he  endeavored  to  give  it  vitality  by 
his  sarcasm.  He  began  the  discussion  of 
such  a  serious  subject  in  this  way,  and  it 
is  so  very  characteristic  that  it  deserves  to 
be  given  in  full:  "  The  most  immoral  act 
I  ever  committed,  so  far  as  known  to  the 
public,  was  to  take  a  seat  on  the  left  of 
the  aisle  in  an  Eastern  country  church.  It 
was  the  women's  side.  The  reason  I  call 
it  my  most  immoral  act  was  not  because 
of  my  motive,  for  I  had  none,  but  because 
nothing  I  have  ever  done  before  or  since 
has  caused  such  horror  in  the  minds  of  the 
righteous,  such  sneers  on  the  part  of  the 
ungodly,  and  such  pain  to  my  friends." 
As  an  opening  for  a  paper  upon  a  subject 
of  vital  importance,  this  stands  unequalled 
for  irrelevancy  and  unfitness.  Its  motive 
is  evident,  to  heap  ridicule  upon  the  author 
who  ventures  to  question  the  system  of 
coeducation,  while  at  the  same  time  he 
could  pose  as  a  man  of  infinite  wit  among 
the  applauding  readers  of  Wyoming  Uni- 
[38] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

versity.  He  is  not  satisfied  to  exhibit  wit, 
but  he  must  also  indulge  in  paradoxes,  if 
we  may  so  mildly  designate  a  denial  of 
physiological  truths,  as  well  as  the  con- 
clusions of  experience.  Segregation  of 
the  sexes  in  coeducation  heightens  sex  con- 
sciousness and  "  stimulates  the  sex  idea." 
Colleges  for  men  are  called  monastic  in- 
stitutions, and  he  makes  no  charges  about 
the  morals  of  the  men  there,  because  he 
"  knows  too  much  about  them."  It  is  not 
necessary  to  treat  Professor  Slosson  se- 
riously, and,  like  the  others,  whom  we  have 
so  far  quoted,  it  is  brought  forward  only 
to  show  the  animus  displayed  by  the  coed- 
ucationists. 

The  most  intolerant  and  vituperative 
reply  brought  out  by  Mr.  Finck's  article 
was  from  the  one  who  is  not  an  educator, 
Mrs.  Harper,  who  edits,  or  writes,  a  col- 
umn or  two  in  the  Sunday  edition  of  the 
New  York  Sun.  Her  reply  is  not  worth 
quoting,  as  it  contains  no  argument 
[39] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

against  Mr.  Finck's  contention,  but  is 
made  up  of  abuse  of  all  who  oppose  the 
mixed  college,  and  of  that  author  in  par- 
ticular, who  was  roundly  abused  for  a 
couple  of  books  he  had  written,  and  which 
appeared  especially  to  rouse  her  ire.  If 
there  is  any  truth  or  justice  in  the  theory 
of  coeducation,  it  can  never  be  brought 
out  by  the  methods  of  argument  followed 
by  its  adherents.  Let  them  eliminate  the 
tendency  to  rash  assertion  of  facts  of 
which  they  offer  no  proof,  let  them  once 
for  all  come  to  the  modest  conclusion  that 
their  mere  opinion  has  no  value  in  an 
argument  upon  a  question  of  sociology, 
and  exhibit  the  manners  of  gentlemen,  and 
there  may  be  hope  that  the  truth  will  be 
reached.  When  you  are  contending  with 
men  who  use  their  style  of  argument,  the 
only  way  is  to  turn  against  them  their 
own  weapons.  This  want  of  tolerance 
savors  of  medievalism,  and  crops  out  in 
the  most  unexpected  places.  Surely  the 
[40] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

discussion  held  by  the  Association  of  Col- 
leges of  the  Middle  States,  published  in 
the  Regents'  Report  for  1901,  must  have 
had  something  in  it  worthy  of  serious  con- 
sideration, and  yet  Dean  Smalley,  of 
Syracuse  University,  an  able  and  con- 
scientious educator,  says  that  it  had  "  some 
nonsense  on  coeducation."  As  long  as  the 
subject  is  treated  in  this  way,  it  will  pro- 
voke hostile  discussion.  There  is  not  a 
man  who  has  approached  the  subject  from 
the  opposite  point  of  view  who  has  not 
been  actuated  by  a  spirit  of  fairness,  and 
the  sole  desire  to  seek  the  truth.  This 
frivolous  attitude  of  its  defenders,  the 
jeering,  scandalizing  comments  of  the 
press,  have  deprived  coeducation  of  all 
dignity.  It  appears  like  education  in  bur- 
lesque, a  comedy  of  errors,  with  the  actors 
dressed  in  cap  and  gown. 

It  is  difficult  to  keep  the  advocates  of 
coeducation    in    colleges    for    men    and 
women  down  to  the  main  question.     Co- 
[41] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

education  is  always  traced  to  the  primary 
school,  then  to  the  secondary  school,  and 
finally  to  the  college.  No  writer  who  has 
ever  opposed  the  latter  form  of  coeduca- 
tion had  an  idea  of  offering  any  argument 
against  children  being  taught  together  in 
primary  schools.  In  the  secondary  schools, 
in  which  the  student  averages  the  age  of 
fifteen  years,  hardly  any  objection  can 
be  raised,  although  in  quite  a  number  of 
cities,  especially  in  the  South,  they  are 
separated.  In  the  primary  school  the  sex 
problem,  of  course,  never  obtrudes. 
Among  the  older  students  in  secondary 
schools,  if  the  boys  and  girls  were  given 
the  same  uncontrolled  social  privileges  that 
they  have  in  mixed  colleges,  the  same  ir- 
regularities would  exist.  The  boys  and 
girls  are,  however,  under  home  influences 
and  control.  This  it  is  that  keeps  the 
school  wholesome  and  free  from  moral 
contamination,  and  it  is  the  absence  of 
the  home  control  that  forms  the  storm  cen- 
[42] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

tre  in  large  mixed  colleges,  and  that  caused 
the  revolution  in  the  relation  of  the  faculty 
to  the  women  students  in  Syracuse  Uni- 
versity. 

In  the  report  of  the  Commissioner  of 
Education  for  the  United  States  for 
1901  -  02,  there  is  an  extensive  chapter 
devoted  to  coeducation.  It  certainly  needed 
editing  by  the  official  compiler.  In  Boston 
a  special  committee  made  a  divided  report 
on  coeducation.  The  majority  report, 
signed  by  J.  P.  C.  Winship  and  Emily  A. 
Fifield,  offers  some  remarkable  instances 
of  logic.  We  do  no  injustice  to  the  authors 
in  separating  the  following  extracts  from 
their  context.  A  man  tells  a  rough  story 
in  a  smoking-car  because  "  there  are  no 
women  here,"  therefore,  educate  boys 
and  men  with  girls  and  women,  and  the 
refining  influence  represses  and  subdues 
the  rough  and  gross  nature  in  young  men. 
We  wonder  if  that  is  so.  The  low  estimate 
that  coeducationists  place  upon  our  young 
[43] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

men  exists  to  such  an  extent  that  it  forms 
a  feature  of  its  so-called  literature.  How 
they  account  for  the  existence  of  the 
American  gentleman,  young  or  old,  before 
coeducation  was  ever  dreamed  of,  is  a 
minor  matter  not  deserving  of  explana- 
tion. '"  If  it  is  right,"  says  this  extraor- 
dinary report,  "  for  brothers  and  sisters  to 
live  in  the  same  house  and  eat  at  the  same 
table,  then  it  is  right  for  them  to  be  edu- 
cated together.  Let  them  be  brought  up 
separately,  and  if  they  meet  only  clandes- 
tinely, great  harm  is  likely  to  result." 
Surely  the  reader  will  pardon  the  ques- 
tion, where  did  this  man  and  woman  get 
their  experience  of  life?  But  the  worst  is 
yet  to  come.  "If  wedlock  is  right  and 
proper,  then  coeducation  is  right  and 
proper.  If  men  and  women  are  to  marry, 
they  should  know  each  other  summer  and 
winter  before  marriage,  and  the  more  they 
know  of  each  other  the  less  likely  will 
divorce  result."  One  other  extract,  in 
[44] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

order  to  show  the  high-handed  style  of 
treating  all  who  oppose  the  method,  by 
people  who  have  become  case-hardened  to 
the  coeducational  idea.  The  majority 
made  an  enrolment  of  all  teachers  for  and 
against  attendance  in  mixed  schools.  Of 
the  results  of  this  tabulation,  they  say: 
"  Of  the  254  teachers  opposed  to  coeduca- 
tion, 122  are  teachers  of  girls  alone,  and 
109  instructors  of  boys  only.  They  may 
be  considered  ex  parte  in  their  views,  and 
should  be  ruled  out."  We  will  say  nothing 
about  the  peculiar  grammar  of  this  quota- 
tion, and  only  call  attention  to  the  result: 
as  all  who  voted  in  opposition  did  so  in  obe- 
dience to  their  convictions,  their  vote  was 
recommended  for  rejection;  the  result  of 
the  voting,  therefore,  was  unanimously  in 
favor.  As  the  minority  report  is  evidently 
ff  ex  parte"  we  rule  it  out. 

A    considerable    number    of    excerpts 
from    the    reports    of    foreign    teachers, 
delegates    to    the    Chicago    Educational 
[45]  " 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

Congress  in  1 893 ,  are  given  in  the  United 
States  report.  —  Leaving  out  all  ref- 
erences to  common  and  secondary  schools, 
one  of  these  reports,  being  from  a  lady, 
Mile.  Marie  Dugard,  is  well  worth  quot- 
ing in  part.  "  From  the  moral  stand- 
point, the  consequences  are  still  more 
dangerous.  It  is  a  law  that  if  two  individ- 
uals live  together,  the  one  who  has  the 
strongest  personality  becomes  the  model  of 
the  other.  [Finally,  it  is  impossible  that 
between  young  men  and  young  women, 
associated  every  day  in  the  familiarity  of 
classes,  there  should  not  be  formed  some 
romances,  which  the  American  education, 
it  is  true,  renders  inoffensive  so  far  as 
regard  manners,  but  which  will  neverthe- 
less have  disadvantages.  These  objections 
seem  judicious,  and  in  the  light  of  them 
it  seems  that  coeducation  ought  to  be 
abandoned.")  Prof.  Emil  Hausknecht,  of 
Berlin,  says7 in  the  same  report:  "As  a 
makeshift,  coeducation  is  better  than  noth- 
[46] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

ing  —  as  a  principle,  it  entirely  ignores 
the  needs  of  the  separate  sexes."  In  his 
book  entitled  "  American  Traits,"  Prof. 
Hugo  Munsterberg,  in  a  summary  which 
is  especially  fair  and  reserved,  writes  of 
the  effemination  of  college  training. 
"  The  whole  situation  here  militates 
against  the  home  and  against  the  mascu- 
line of  higher  education,  and  seems  to  me, 
therefore,  antagonistic  to  the  health  of 
the  nation.  .  /.  Coeducation  means  only 
equality;  but \the  so-called  higher  educa- 
tion for  girls  means,  under  the  conditions 
of  American  life  to-day,  decidedly  not  the 
equality,  but  the  superiority  of  women.) 
.  .  .  The  woman  who  studies  medicine  or 
natural  science,  music  or  painting,  perhaps 
even  law  or  divinity,  can  we  affront  her 
with  the  suggestion,  which  would  be  an 
insult  to  the  man,  that  all  her  work  is  so 
superficial  that  she  will  not  care  for  its 
continuation  as  soon  as  she  undertakes  the 
duties  of  a  married  woman?  Or  ought 
[47] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

we  to  imply  that  she  is  so  conceited  as  to 
believe  that  she  is  able  to  do  what  no  man 
would  dare  hope  for  himself;  that  is,  to 
combine  the  professional  duties  of  the  man 
with  the  not  less  complex  duties  of  the 
woman?  She  knows  that  the  intensity  of 
her  special  interest  must  suffer,  and  that 
her  work  must  become  a  superficial  side 
interest." 

In  the  further  examination  of  the  report 
of  the  Bureau  of  Education  at  Washing- 
ton, which,  by  the  way,  is  a  coeducational 
document,  rather  unfair  measures  are  re- 
sorted to  to  prop  up  the  cause.  The  boast 
is  frequently  made  that  the  American  idea 
is  spreading  to  foreign  universities  and 
colleges ;  concerning  this,  the  report  states : 
"  At  Oxford,  women  are  admitted  to  the 
lectures  of  about  120  professors,  readers, 
and  lecturers  in  the  university.  They  are 
also  admitted  to  the  examinations  for 
B.  A.,  but  are  not  eligible  to  the  university 
degrees.  Substantially  the  same  arrange- 
[48] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

ments  have  been  made  at  Cambridge. 
Women  are  admitted  on  the  same  terms 
as  men  to  Durham  University,  and  are 
eligible  to  all  the  degrees  excepting  those 
in  divinity.  Victoria  University  grants 
degrees  on  the  same  terms  as  men.  In  the 
University  of  Wales,  women  have  the 
same  privileges  as  men.  The  University 
College,  established  in  England  since  1868, 
is  open  to  men  and  women.  By  the  Uni- 
versities. Act  of  1889,  the  Scotch  univer- 
sities were  authorized  to  open  their  doors 
to  women.  Edinburg  admits  them  to  the 
classes  with  men.  Glasgow  has  affiliated 
Queen  Margaret  College  for  women,  and, 
more  recently  (1895),  opened  all  lectures 
in  the  faculty  of  arts  to  women.  The 
University  of  Dundee,  affiliated  to  St. 
Andrew's,  is  coeducational*  Women  are 
admitted  to  all  the  privileges  of  the 
Royal  University  of  Ireland.  Trinity 
College,  Dublin,  does  not  admit  women, 
but  special  examinations  for  women  out- 
[49] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

side  the  course  for  students  of  the  college 
were  established  about  twenty-five  years 
ago,  and  are  still  continued."  The  con- 
tention of  this  extract  is  manifest,  that  is^ 
that  coeducation,  as  we  understand  the 
term  in  the  United  States,  is  finding  a 
foothold  in  conservative  England,  and  is 
intentionally  misleading.  Coeducation, 
with  its  untrammelled  social  relation  of 
the  sexes,  as  exists  in  Northwestern  and 
Chicago  University,  and  as  it  formerly 
existed  at  Syracuse,  could  not  live  an  hour 
in  England.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  coedu- 
cation on  the  Oberlin  plan  has  made  no 
progress  in  England,  or  the  Colonies. 
In  England,  University  College  has  a 
woman's  department,  King's  College  also 
has  a  woman's  department,  Lady  Mar- 
garet, Somerville,  and  St.  Hilda,  at 
Oxford,  are  for  women.  In  Wales,  there 
are  Alexandria  Hall,  at  Aberystwyth,  and 
Aberdere  Hall,  at  Cardiff,  as  distinct 
from  the  parent  institution  as  are  Rad- 
[50] 


FOK  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

cliffe,  at  Harvard,  and  Barnard,  at 
Columbia.  Glasgow  has  affiliated  Queen 
Margaret  College  for  women,  and  is  not 
coeducational.  In  Germany,  the  college 
as  it  is  known  here  does  not  exist,  its  func- 
tion being  confined  to  the  gymnasia,  to 
which  women  are  not  admitted.  German 
universities  confine  their  degree  work  to 
the  learned  profession,  law,  medicine, 
divinity,  and  to  a  course  of  philosophy. 
The  Technische  Hochschules  are  coordi- 
nate in  rank  with  the  universities,  and  give 
practical  professional  training,  except  in 
the  learned  professions.  Women  are  ad- 
mitted to  examinations  for  degrees  in 
many  of  the  universities,  but  are  not  al- 
lowed to  matriculate,  and  are  simply 
hearers  by  courtesy.  They  thus  form  no 
part  of  the  student  body.  In  France,  the 
prevailing  conditions  are  but  little  better 
in  favor  of  women,  their  university  no 
better.  In  1898  there  were  871  women  en- 
rolled as  attending  French  universities,  in 
[51] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

a  total  of  28,782.  In  medicine  there  were 
469,  science  80,  letters  262,  and  in  phar- 
macy 55.  For  the  same  year  (1898)  there 
were  only  16  doctorates  in  medicine  and  3 
diplomas  in  pharmacy  bestowed.  In  spite 
of  all  this,  in  nearly  every  article  that  is 
written  the  statement  is  made  that  coed- 
ucation is  making  rapid  progress  abroad, 
and  the  public  which  they  address  be- 
lieves it. 

An  interesting  feature  of  the  more  re- 
cent literature  of  coeducation,  is  the  plan 
of  segregate,  or  coordinate,  education. 
These  are  advocated  as  a  remedy  for  the 
evils  that  the  system  has  gradually  led  up 
to.  Both  are  as  strenuously  battled  against 
as  is  the  plan  to  abolish  the  method  en- 
tirely. President  C.  F.  Thwing,  in  his 
book,  "  The  College  Woman,"  extracts 
from  which  are  given  place  in  the  report 
of  the  Bureau,  "  Coordination,"  he  says, 
"  represents  a  college  for  men  as  part  of 
a  university,  and  a  college  for  women  as 
[52] 


FOE  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

part  of  a  university,  each  able  to  exist 
without  the  other,  both  united  in  loyalty 
to  the  same  ideals.  Coordinate  education 
is  not  coeducation,  for  the  men  and  women 
do  not  recite  in  the  same  class.  It  pro- 
motes a  very  sane  health.  It  does  not 
tempt  to  love  giving  or  love  receiving  any 
more  than  humanity  itself.  It  is  a  method 
more  easy  to  administer  than  coeducation. 
The  students  are  not  brought  into  relations 
so  intimate  that  even  the  wisest  parents 
can  ask  questions  of  anxiety."  It  is  an 
anomaly  in  education  that  the  sex  relation 
referred  to  by  President  Thwing  is  just 
what  the  hard-shell  coeducationist  does 
want.  The  humanizing,  cultivating  influ- 
ence of  the  "  cultured "  young  girl  of 
eighteen  on  the  education  of  men  cannot 
be  given  up.  She  is  an  essential  feature 
of  the  method.  In  this  "  cultured  "  so- 
ciety too  great  intimacy  cannot  exist,  and, 
if  marriage  takes  place,  and  the  more  the 
better,  as  President  Jordan  says,  what  can 
[53] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

be  so  good  as  a  cultured  young  man, 
whom  we  may  term  the  by-product  of  the 
method? 

Brown  University  has  begun  the  method 
of  coordinate  education,  and  is  counted  by 
Doctor  Harris,  in  his  Bureau  report,  as  a 
coeducational  college,  which  called  forth 
a  protest  from  President  Faunce.  The 
work  at  Brown  does  away  with  one  ob- 
jection raised  against  the  coordinate  sys- 
tem, namely,  its  expense.  '  While  this 
establishment,"  the  president  says,  "  makes 
no  drain  whatever  upon  the  University's 
financial  resources,  it  adds  greatly  to  its 
popularity  and  favor  with  the  commu- 
nity." Coordination,  when  established  as 
a  part  of  a  college  for  men,  elicits  no  pro- 
test on  the  part  of  coeducation  advocates, 
but  when  it  is  proposed  to  introduce  it  into 
institutions  for  both  sexes,  where  the  "  cul- 
ture "  theory  has  hitherto  flourished,  it 
rouses  a  storm  of  indignant  protest. 

The  same  may  be  said  of  the  proposed 
[54] 


FOE  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

segregation  plan  for  Chicago  University, 
an  idea  which  has  taken  root  also  in  North- 
western University,  according  to  recent 
despatches  of  the  Associated  Press.  These 
changes  in  the  two  great  institutions  of 
the  Middle  West  may  be  regarded  as  san- 
itary measures  to  improve  education  and 
clear  the  moral  atmosphere,  as  clearly 
needed  in  college  life  as  in  an  effort  to 
abate  the  smoke  nuisance  in  Chicago. 
Against  this,  newspaper  attacks  are  made, 
of  a  character  only  equalled  by  the  slum 
politics.  The  reader  already  knows  some- 
thing of  the  aim  of  coordination  in  educa-» 
tion.  Is  there  anything  about  it  to  solicit 
the  following  intemperate  attack  from 
Mrs.  Harper,  in  the  easy  columns  of  the 
New  York  Sun?  "  Is  the  sex  line  to  be 
drawn  at  Chicago  University?  After  ten 
years  of  enjoyment  of  its  splendid  privi- 
leges, are  women  to  be  set  aside  in  an 
'  annex,'  and  subjected  to  all  the  limita- 
tions which  are  endured  by  the  women  of 

[66] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

other  colleges  where  coordinate  education 
prevails?  These  are  the  things  which  the 
people  of  this  country  have  a  right  to 
protest.  Has  Doctor  Harper  hypnotized 
Mr.  Rockefeller,  that  he  consents  to  this? 
.  .  .  One  of  the  greatest  experiments  ever 
made  has  been  in  progress  at  Chicago 
University,  and  it  has  been  watched  by  the 
educators  of  the  world.  President  Harper 
proposes  to  declare  this  practically  a  fail- 
ure. Such  action  will  be  a  calamity  from 
which  it  will  require  a  generation  to  re- 
cover. There  should  be  a  quick  and  unan- 
imous protest  from  every  newspaper  and 
every  man  and  every  woman  of  influence." 
( New  York  Sun,  July  6, 1902. )  The  con- 
cluding sentence  of  this  quotation  demon- 
strates that  Mrs.  Harper  lacks  sanity  on 
this  subject.  All  people  must  think  as  she 
does.  All  newspapers  do  not  advocate 
coeducation,  and  most  men  and  women  of 
influence  send  their  daughters  to  colleges 
for  women.  Again  she  says:  "It  is 
[56] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

sought  to  do  this  unjust  thing,  not  by  pre- 
senting openly  the  objection  to  the  present 
system,  and  permitting  a  full  and  free 
discussion,  but  by  the  party  machine 
method  of  coercing  voters,  juggling  bal- 
lots, taking  advantage  of  absentees,  to 
secure  majorities,  and  other  devious  ways 
of  the  politician."  This  would  be  very 
wrong  if  it  were  true,  but  it  is  not  true. 
Again,  she  winds  up  with  the  crescendo: 
"  Against  this  most  retrogressive  action  let 
there  be  emphatic  protest  by  the  press,  by 
individuals,  and  by  organizations  of  men 
and  women  throughout  the  country." 
(New  York  Sun,  September  28,  1902.) 
If  there  can  be  anything  finer  than  this 
in  the  way  of  a  quiet,  philosophical  dis- 
cussion of  a  great  problem  in  education, 
research  has  failed  to  discover  it. 

The  most  aggressive  advocates  are  the 

women  suffragists.     This  movement  has 

been  the  fostering  agent  of  the  corelation 

of  the  sexes  in  college  education.    This,  at 

[57] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

least,  is  true  of  the  method  in  the  East. 
In  the  West  and  Middle  West,  peculiar 
social  conditions  favored  the  growth  of 
the  idea.  In  the  East,  the  plan  of  cam- 
paign on  the  part  of  the  suffragists  has 
been  a  stupid  abuse  of  men;  on  a  parity, 
their  method  of  advancing  the  cause  of 
coeducation  has  been  an  equal  abuse  of 
any  one  who  opposed  it.  The  motive  of 
the  women  suffragists,  admitting  that  they 
have  any,  must  be  a  mixed  one.  On  the 
one  hand,  they  hope  to  gain  an  additional 
political  assel;  with  which  to  discount  the 
future,  and,{on  the  other  hand,  to  make 
a  marked  impression  by  the  alleged  ex- 
cessive brightness  and  receptive  qualities 
of  women  over  men  in  their  studies.  The 
latter  is  no  doubt  true,  as  relates  to 
young  woman  from  eighteen  to  twenty- 
two  years  of  age,  but  this  disappears  as 
maturity  places  men  and  women  on  a  com- 
mon level.  \  Industrial  feminism  has  re- 
ceived but  little  attention  from  the  suf- 
[58] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

fragists,  who  have  concentrated  on  the 
woman  student,  and  only  on  the  student 
as  she  takes  part  in  a  mixed  college,  the 
interest  that  ought  to  have  been  extended 
to  women  in  the  many  relations  of  impor- 
tance which  she  bears  to  the  great  modern 
movement  of  industrial  feminism.  Here 
she  is  gaining  her  greatest  victories  in  the 
wide  domain  of  the  industries,  and  gains 
them  with  modest  assurance,  in  which  co- 
education and  woman's  suffrage  take  no 
part.  This,  the  future  will  show  to  be  true 
coeducation;  in  the  ever  widening  univer- 
sity of  practical  life,  where  skill  of  hand 
and  the  trained  mind  will  make  woman 
man's  coworker,  share  and  share  alike,  co- 
education must  open  the  door  to  woman. 
It  must  make  easy  and  ensure  success  for 
her  in  what  is  difficult  for  the  sister  who 
is  not  coeducated.  But  coeducation  has 
not  yet  stood  this  test.  There  is  an  entire 
absence  of  evidence  to  prove  that,  in  the 
active  competition  of  life,  young  women, 
[59] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

the  product  of  mixed  colleges,  have  any 
advantage  over  other  women.  The  coedu- 
cationists  make  no  claim  in  this  direction; 
there  are  too  many  facts  against  it  viewed 
from  this  standpoint.  The  only  claims  the 
women  suffragists  make,  are  that  women 
are  entitled  to  the  same  kind  and  degree 
of  education  that  men  are  receiving,  with- 
out reference  to  occupation,  and  that  edu- 
cation of  the  coeducational  kind  will  better 
fit  her  for  the  duties  of  a  wife  and  mother. 
Concerning  this  latter  contention,  there  are 
no  facts  obtainable  from  the  vast  army  of 
wives  and  mothers.  That,  however,  is  of 
no  consequence ;  it  is  stated  with  the  force 
of  a  self-evident  proposition,  in  which  all 
are  to  place  their  belief.  If  there  is  any- 
thing in  the  license  permitted  in  the  un- 
controlled relations  of  the  sexes  to  fit  a 
woman  for  wifehood,  the  history  of  these 
young  women  has  failed  to  reveal  it,  or,  if 
to  bring  to  the  side  of  the  cradle  an  intelli- 
gence trained  on  this  model  offers  any 
[60] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

advantages  over  instinctive  motherhood,  it 
also  has  yet  to  be  provenj 

The  relation  of  women  to  the  industries 
is  not  indebted  to  college  education ;  on  the 
contrary,  the  great  common  school  system 
of  the  country,  which,  during  the  past  fifty 
years,  has  been  given  broader  scope  and  a 
more  practical  direction,  is  what  has 
opened  the  door  to  industrial  feminism  in 
America,  as  contrasted  with  the  social 
feminism  of  Germany,  with  Madame 
Husson  as  its  exponent.  In  England, 
where  it  is  a  gospel  of  discontent,  or  in 
Sweden,  where  Ibsen  is  its  prophet.  This 
is  called  the  "  emancipation  of  women," 
and  this  is  the  ground  held  by  the  women 
suffragists.  There  is  no  word  as  to  the 
betterment  of  woman  labor  conditions. 
On  the  contrary,  she  is  simply  regarded 
individually  as  a  political  unit,  from  whom 
her  natural  prerogatives  have  been  with- 
held. "  And  all  women  will  know  in  time," 
says  an  illogical  advocate  of  "equal 
[61] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

rights,"  "  what  many  of  them  realize  now, 
that  their  Government  has  not  fulfilled  its 
whole  duty  in  simply  permitting  them  to 
make  a  living."  When  did  Government, 
State  or  national,  ever  assume  any  right 
to  "permit"  women  to  make  a  living? 
Absurdities  like  this  must  not  be  allowed 
to  interrupt  the  even  flow  of  the  remark- 
able argument;  "but  that  justice  de- 
mands," she  continues,  "  that  it  should  give 
them,  in  addition,  a  voice  in  the  councils 
and  a  part  in  its  administrations.  The 
State  itself  will  eventually  have  sufficient 
confidence  in  the  judgment,  ability,  and 
patriotism  of  its  women  to  acknowledge 
fully  their  value  and  their  necessity  in 
public  affairs."  (New  York  Sun,  July  5, 
1903.)  This  social  feminism,  the  gospel 
of  decadence,  that  is  disturbing  Europe 
and  filling  it  with  a  literature  of  revolt 
and  discontent,  is  not  that  woman  may  find 
wider  fields  for  her  industrial  efforts,  but 
for  her  to  throw  off  the  shackles  of  social 
[62] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

restraints,  and  secure  in  their  place  her 
emancipation  from  marriage  and  all  that 
it  implies.  If  coeducation  is  not  to  secure 
for  women  a  broader  field  of  usefulness, 
then,  under  the  decadent  teaching  of  the 
women  suffragists,  she  will  be  expected  to 
join  in  the  cry  of  revolt  against  the  crime 
of  marriage  and  maternity  without  her 
consent. 

The  future  for  women,  the  healthy,  con- 
tented future,  all  depends  on  the  material 
side,  that  inevitably  tends  to  release 
woman  from  her  dependence  on  man. 
This  must  not  only  be  relative,  but  it  must 
be  absolute  and  general,  in  order  to  give 
her  a  freedom  of  choice  as  to  what  her 
relations  with  man  may  be.  If  she  be 
self-supporting  and  contented  with  her 
lot,  she  marries  from  choice,  with  no  neces- 
sity to  wait  for  a  possible  marriage  which 
may  never  come.  She  will  be  under  no 
necessity  to  become  a  place-hunter  from 
a  political  majority,  which,  unless  women 
[63] 


WOMAN^S  UNFITNESS 

possess  a  moral  fibre  to  which  men  are 
strangers,  will  make  of  her  a  social  im- 
possibility. What  is  there  in  coeducation 
to  impart  to  woman  her  ability  to  keep  her 
future  in  her  own  hands?  That  is  to 
broaden,  not  her  capacity  to  vote  and  to 
seek  office,  but  to  secure  for  her  a  fair 
share  of  the  right  and  ability  to  work. 
That  is  to  increase  her  effectiveness  by 
the  side  of  man  that  alone  will  secure  to 
her  an  equal  share  of  compensation. 

To  the  great  and  final  test  of  coeduca- 
tion in  mixed  colleges,  that  of  fitness  for 
work,  the  literature  of  the  subject  gives 
no  clue.  Unsupported  assertions  are 
made,  but  no  proof  given.  It  would  nat- 
urally occur  to  one  that,  if  the  advocates 
of  the  method  believe  it  to  be  necessary 
to  say  what  they  do,  and  in  a  way  which 
they  evidently  regard  as  striking  and  con- 
vincing, they  wrould  also  see  the  need  of 
offering  some  evidence  that  would  bring 
conviction  to  thinking  people. 
[64] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

It  would  be  a  simple  matter  to  keep  in 
touch  with  their  women  graduates,  and 
tabulate  their  occupations  and  earning 
capacities.  The  majority  of  women  grad- 
uates of  mixed  colleges  who  have  to  seek  a 
vocation  enter  the  teaching  profession.  A 
contributor  to  the  New  York  Sun  of  Jan- 
uary 11,1903,  Mrs.  Harper,  is  wholly  just 
in  her  complaint  of  the  small  salaries  paid 
to  women  teachers.  But  the  explanation 
is  not  that  they  are  discriminated  against, 
it  is  simply  the  old  law  of  supply  and 
demand.  The  statistics  given  in  the  Re- 
port of  the  Federal  Bureau  of  Education 
show  that  the  average  excess  of  women 
teachers  over  men  is  72  per  cent,  for  the 
whole  country.  The  average  pay  for  men 
is  $47,  and  $39  for  women,  monthly. 
An  average  never  expresses  a  mathemat- 
ical fact,  it  is  only  an  approximation,  and, 
as  such,  gives  no  idea  of  the  actual  salaries 
paid.  In  the  cities  of  what  in  the  report 
is  called  the  North  Atlantic  Division,  it  is 
[65] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

doubtful  if  there  are  one  per  cent,  of  men 
on  the  eligible  lists  seeking  positions  in  the 
grammar  schools.  On  the  eligible  list  of 
the  city  of  Syracuse,  there  are  more  than 
enough  seeking  positions  to  supply  the  city 
for  ten  years,  and  no  men  applying  for 
appointment  as  room  teachers.  Women 
graduates  from  the  local  coeducational 
college  have  crowded  the  lists  for  high 
school  positions  to  an  equal  extent.  These 
young  women  refuse  positions  in  schools 
of  the  senior  grade.  It  is  only  partly  a 
matter  of  pay,  as  the  majority  claim  that 
their  college  education  has  fitted  them  for 
something  higher  than  to  teach  children. 
If  their  higher  education  is  responsible 
for  the  belief  that  they  are  too  well  edu- 
cated to  teach  children,  their  college  has 
badly  fitted  them  for  their  calling.  In- 
deed, so  risky  is  the  experiment  of  ap- 
pointing a  recent  graduate  to  a  high  school 
position,  that  Doctor  Blodgett,  the  very 
efficient  Superintendent  of  Schools  of 
[66] 


FOR  HIGHEE  COEDUCATION 

Syracuse,  has  repeatedly  protested  against 
such  appointments.  Competition  is  rap- 
idly placing  the  teacher  of  college  rank  on 
the  same  basis  as  the  graduates  of  the  nor- 
mal schools  and  teachers'  training  classes. 
In  all  the  literature  that  has  emanated 
from  the  coeducationists,  there  has  been 
nothing  said  about  the  college  coeducated 
girl  at  home.  She  must,  for  a  certain 
period  of  her  life,  resume  her  place  in  the 
home  environment,  with  the  exception  of 
those  who  teach,  or  the  small  number  who 
enter  the  professions.  What  atmosphere 
does  she  bring  with  her,  what  return  does 
she  make  for  the  family  resources  often 
strained  to  fit  her  for  something  useful? 
Elenor  Hoyt,  in  Collier's  Weekly  for 
June  21,  1903,  writes  evidently  in  the 
fulness  of  knowledge  of  this  interesting 
phase  of  the  coeducated  college  woman. 
'  The  college  girl  from  the  small  town 
finds  it  impossible  *  to  settle  down  and 
stagnate.'  Something  is  wrong  with  an 
[67] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

education  that  does  not  provide  a  woman 
with  resources  to  defy  stagnation.  The 
daughter  cannot  relieve  her  mother  of 
long-carried  domestic  and  social  responsi- 
bilities, because  these  petty  intrusions  upon 
her  time  interfere  with  her  self -culture. 
The  college  girl  must  carry  the  gospel  of 
plaster  casts  and  foreign  photographs  to 
the  great  unwashed,  even  if  that  work 
takes  strength  and  energy,  and,  conse- 
quently, good  cheer."  There  are  fortu- 
nately many  exceptions  to  this  dark 
picture,  otherwise  coeducation  as  a  home 
wrecker  would  exceed  in  force  a  Western 
cyclone;  but,  in  theory,  that  is  just  what 
the  system  might  be  expected  to  do  for  a 
shallow,  conceited  girl.  It  is,  as  President 
Jordan  wisely  says,  that  some  girls  are  not 
fit  to  be  coeducated  at  a  college. 


[68] 


CHAPTER   III 

The  Physiology  of  Coeducation 

ONE  of  the  strongest  arguments  that  the 
advocates  of  coeducation  offer  in  favor 
of  their  system,  is  the  improved  health, 
physically  and  mentally,  of  the  women 
students.  This  claim  is  made  so  assid- 
uously as  to  lead  one  to  believe  that  a 
similar  condition  does  not  exist  among 
women  at  large,  but  that  it  is  a  distinguish- 
ing trait  of  the  college  woman.  If  the 
reader  will  bear  in  mind  what  has  been 
said  concerning  the  social  life  in  colleges 
for  both  sexes,  it  will  need  no  argument  to 
establish  the  fact  that  there  is  nothing, 
either  in  the  curriculum  or  in  the  social 
habits  of  the  students,  to  maintain  good 
[69] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

health  in  those  who  are  well,  or  to  enable 
those  who  are  constitutionally  delicate  to 
cope  successfully  with  the  four  years  of 
student  life.  She  is  admitted  on  the  same 
physical  standard  that  men  are,  and  she 
continues  on  that  basis  throughout  her 
course.  The  central  idea  of  coeducation 
is  the  obliteration  of  the  sex  line.  The 
moment  woman  is  held  as  something  dif- 
ferent from  man  in  needs  and  capacity 
for  education,  or  that  she  offers  any  phys- 
ical limitations  to  its  attainment,  coedu- 
cation as  a  system  in  higher  education  will 
break  down,  and  its  most  bigoted  advo- 
cate can  no  longer  claim  any  place  or 
necessity  for  it.  Any  contention  that 
women  students  show  a  continued  im- 
provement in  health  and  physique  during 
their  college  course  has  no  better  basis  in 
fact,  or  in  reason,  than  many  other  claims 
upheld  by  the  advocates  of  the  system. 

What  they  make  a  point  of  is  true  of 
all  young  women  who  have  a  fair  start 
[70] 


FOE  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

in  the  way  of  functional  health,  as  they 
mature  in  four  years  of  advancing  woman- 
hood, without  regard  to  their  station  or 
occupation  in  life. 

This  clears  the  way  for  an  impartial 
inquiry  into  the  subject  of  coeducation  and 
women's  health.  In  the  interest  of  fair- 
ness, it  may  be  said  that  many  who  have 
opposed  it  have  made  their  specifications 
of  the  ill-eff ects  of  coeducation  upon  the 
health  of  women  students  too  broad.  It 
is  not  so  much  a  matter  of  the  greater 
liability  of  a  physical  breakdown  during 
the  pursuit  of  student  life,  in  excess  of 
other  occupations  of  women,  as  it  is  of 
whether  there  are  efficient  functional 
reasons  why  women  may  not  conform  to 
the  standard  of  men  in  the  manner  and 
method  of  study.  And,  further,  if  such 
conformity  is  enforced  in  colleges  for  both 
sexes,  is  her  future  health  as  well  assured 
as  it  would  have  been  had  she  been  edu- 
cated along  lines  where  due  regard  was 
[71] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

given  both  to  education  and  to  woman- 
hood? 

Dr.  Mary  Putnam  Jacobi,  in  her  book 
on  "  The  Question  of  Rest  for  Women," 
is  obliged  to  reluctantly  confess  that  forty- 
five  per  cent,  of  women  suffer  from  men- 
strual pain.  The  experience  of  every 
physician  who  has  opportunities  for 
observation  confirms  this.  Experience  also 
shows  that  twenty  per  cent,  of  other 
women  suffer  from  mental  depression,  las- 
situde, loss  of  appetite,  and  a  general 
sense  of  physical  ill.  Here  sixty-five  per 
cent,  of  women  offer  a  material  reason 
why  some  modification  should  be  made  in 
her  manner  of  study.  Dr.  Putnam  Jacobi, 
in  her  experimental  study  of  this  function, 
shows  that  there  is  a  marked  increase  of 
arterial  blood-pressure  just  before,  with  an 
abrupt  fall  after  its  completion.  There 
is  also,  during  this  function,  an  enormous 
increase  of  nerve  waste,  as  shown  by  the 
increase  in  the  excretion  of  urea  in  some 
[72] 


FOE  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

cases,  and  in  other  cases,  while  the  sys- 
temic demands  for  its  excretion  exist 
equally  in  both  cases,  there  is  a  marked 
failure  of  elimination.  Here  an  actual 
poison  is  retained  in  the  system,  concen- 
trating in  action  on  the  gray  matter  of  the 
brain  frontal  lobes.  These  women  could 
labor  with  much  less  damage  to  their  nerve 
centres  over  the  wash-tub,  than  they  could 
solve  their  problems  in  geometry,  or  con- 
strue their  Latin  prose.  In  view  of  these 
profound  alterations  in  circulation  and 
nutrition,  to  demand  of  women  the  same 
hours  and  continuity  of  work  that  men 
give  to  college  work,  is  a  physiological  in- 
sult. To  quote  further  from  Dr.  Putnam 
Jacobi,  who  is  a  staunch  defender  of  the 
ability  of  her  sex  to  do  all  manner  of  work 
at  all  times:  "  For  theoretical  reasons,  ex- 
posed in  detail,  and  from  the  results  of 
observation,  we  are  authorized  in  asserting 
that  women  do  work  better,  and  with  much 
greater  safety  to  health,  when  their  work 
[73] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

is  frequently  intermitted,  but  that  these 
intermittences  should  be  at  short  intervals 
and  lasting  a  short  time,  not  at  long  in- 
tervals and  lasting  longer."  She  makes 
what  we  may  term  a  solemn  conclusion 
in  the  last  paragraph  of  her  brilliant  book : 
"  It  remains  true,  however,  that  in  our 
existing  social  conditions,  forty-six  per 
cent,  of  women  suffer  more  or  less  at 
menstruation,  and,  for  a  large  number  of 
these,  when  engaged  in  industrial  pur- 
suits, or  others,  under  the  command  of  an 
employer,  humanity  dictates  that  rest 
from  work  during  the  period  of  pain  be 
afforded  whenever  practicable."  If  to 
those  who  suffer  from  actual  physical 
pain  is  added  twenty  per  cent,  of  others 
who  suffer  from  the  psychic  disturbance 
of  menstruation,  we  have  a  vast  number 
of  young  women  in  our  two-sex  colleges 
who  are  treated  with  brutal  inhumanity 
and  indifference,  for  have  we  not  the  evi- 
dence of  numerous  defenders  of  coeduca- 
[7*3 


FOE  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

tion  that  no  difference  is  observed  in  the 
work  of  college  girls  during  this  period, 
and  no  complaints  are  made.  That  no 
complaints  are  made  is  probably  true,  for 
any  one  who  has  studied  girls  knows  very 
well  that,  when  continually  working  in  the 
presence  of  the  other  sex,  they  will  suffer 
actual  torture  rather  than  betray  the  cause 
of  their  weakness. 

But  Dr.  Putnam  Jacobi  goes  deeper 
into  the  cause  of  women's  temperamental 
need  for  rest  than  the  superficial  one  of 
menstruation.  She  concludes :  "  Finally, 
that  they  (intervals  of  rest)  are  required 
at  all  times,  and  have  no  special  reference 
to  the  period  of  the  menstrual  flow."  This, 
as  our  author  states,  is  because  women  do 
work  better  and  with  less  possible  injury 
to  health,  when  these  short,  but  frequent, 
intervals  of  rest  are  observed. 

Now,  no  author  the  equal  to  Dr.  Put- 
nam Jacobi  in  general  professional  learn- 
ing, or  in  special  knowledge  of  her  sex, 
[75] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

connected  with  any  college  for  both  sexes, 
has  given  this  physiological  side  of  coed- 
ucation any  other  attention  than  a  general 
denial.  In  a  flat  contradiction,  which,  in 
most  cases,  is  a  summary  of  their  igno-* 
ranee  upon  the  subject, they  appear  to  have 
disposed  of  the  whole  question  to  their 
own  satisfaction.  Coeducation  is  being 
tried  before  the  bar  of  a  public  that  is 
gradually  becoming  enlightened,  and  this 
question  will  have  to  be  answered  by  argu- 
ments more  valid  than  sneers  and  mean- 
ingless denials. 

Brilliant  as  is  the  work  of  Dr.  Putnam 
Jacobi  upon  this  important  phase  of  coed- 
ucation, we  have  a  more  recent  contribu- 
tion, based  upon  a  wider  range  of  data 
and  bearing  directly  upon  the  subject  of 
education.  In  the  transactions  of  the 
American  Gynecological  Society  for  the 
year  1900,  Dr.  George  J.  Engelmann,  the 
then  president  of  the  society,  contributed 
a  paper  on  "  The  American  Girl  of 
[76] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

To-day.  The  Influence  of  Modern  Edu- 
cation on  Functional  Development."  It 
may  be  said  here  that  if  coeducationists 
ignore  this  work  of  Doctor  Engelmann, 
they  will  do  so  to  their  lasting  regret. 
Space  forbids  doing  more  here  than  giv- 
ing a  few  extracts  from  this  paper.  In 
Table  III.,  one  hundred  college  women 
are  tabulated,  of  whom  ninety  per  cent, 
were  sufferers  before  entering,  and  ninety- 
five  per  cent,  during  college  life.  The 
ratios  are  high,  as  the  author  included 
moderate  sufferers.  He  says:  "  We  have 
seen  an  aggravation  of  suffering  with  ad- 
vancing grade,  as  much  as  ten  per  cent.; 
and  yet  more  in  normal  than  in  high, 
more  in  college  than  in  high  or  prepara- 
tory school.  The  college  alumnae,  by 
their  records,  show  sixty-six  per  cent.  dur-» 
ing  the  earlier  years  of  pubertal  develop- 
ment, and  state  that  organic  trouble 
increased  during  college  from  twenty-four 
to  thirty-six  per  cent.  A  certain  confirma- 
[77] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

tion  of  these  figures  is,  moreover,  found 
in  the  experience  of  young  women  as  to 
the  increased  difficulty  of  work,  mental 
or  physical,  during  the  menstrual  period, 
and  by  the  number  who  are  excused  from 
their  regular  duties  at  those  times.  We 
find  this  expression  precisely  where  we 
should  naturally  expect  it,  where  study  is 
harder,  and  looked  upon  more  seriously." 
In  speaking  of  the  pre-menstrual  and 
post-menstrual  waves  of  nervous  excita- 
tion and  blood-pressure,  he  says:  "  Intel- 
lectual vigor  follows  the  same  lines,  and 
mental  energy  and  acumen  are,  as  a  rule, 
diminished  during  the  first  days,  at  least, 
as  is  affirmed  by  perhaps  sixty-five  per 
cent,  of  the  many  questioned,  who  state, 
that  mental  exertion,  study,  at  that  time, 
is  more  difficult  and  wearing,  and  requires 
greater  effort.  This  mental  depression  is 
evident  in  the  listlessness,  indifference,  and 
inability  to  master  tasks  easy  at  other 
times,  noted  by  every  observant  educator 
[78] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

as  indicating  the  presence  of  the  flow  and 
the  period  of  its  first  advent,  and  the 
brightest  mind,  the  most  sensitive,  high- 
strung,  nervous  organization  is,  as  a  rule, 
the  most  responsive  and  most  liable  to 
impairment  during  the  menstrual  period." 
Our  author  continues,  with  another  and 
most  important  resume:  "  Functional  dis- 
turbances are  least  in  the  first  years  of 
pubertal  development  in  the  high  school, 
increasing  with  each  year,  increasing  in  the 
normal  school  and  college,  increasing  with 
intensity  and  seriousness  of  work;  in  one 
institution  we  see  an  aggravation  of  from 
sixty-four  to  seventy  per  cent,  in  the  fresh- 
man class,  and  to  eighty  per  cent,  in  the 
higher  classes.  This  is  not  the  effect  of 
brain-work  alone,  but  of  all  the  conditions, 
mental  and  physical,  of  school  life,  the 
resultant  of  concomitant  circumstances,  as 
is  shown  by  the  widely  different  conditions 
in  various  institutions,  but  the  dependence 
upon  school  life  is  distinctly  characterized 
[79] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

by  increase  of  suffering,  more  frequent 
recurrence  from  eighteen  to  twenty-five 
and  even  as  often  as  once  in  fourteen 
days,  toward  the  latter  part  of  the  school 
year,  with  return  to  the  normal  in  vacation, 
usually  recurring  with  the  resumption  of 
fall  work,  but  certainly  with  the  tire  which 
comes  toward  the  close  of  the  session 
in  spring.  This  deterioration  in  health, 
general  and  functional,  in  the  college  girl, 
is  not  the  natural  accompaniment  of  in- 
creasing years,  as  is  proven  by  a  comparison 
of  her  condition  with  that  of  the  working 
girl.  It  is  distinctly  a  sequence  to  college 
life,  directly  and  indirectly,  not  due  alto- 
gether to  mental  strain,  but  to  the  com- 
bined influences  of  life  and  methods  of 
training.  This  comparison  is  instructive, 
though  unjust  to  the  working  girl,  and 
I  refer  to  it  because  it  has  been  made  to 
show  that  the  influences  of  school  and  col- 
lege life  are  no  more  deleterious  to  the 
peculiar  organization  of  women  than  those 
[80] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

to  be  encountered  in  other  occupations  in 
the  active  pursuits  of  life.  It  is  unjust, 
because  the  sole  aim  and  object  of  the 
one  is  the  development  of  all  the  powers 
and  faculties,  guided  by  instructors  whose 
duty  it  is  to  perfect  this  development,  and 
correct  faults  physical  as  well  as  mental. 
The  other  is  engaged  in  the  struggle  for 
existence,  and  in  the  keen  competition  of 
the  day  must  expect  wounds,  however  the 
humanitarian  may  seek  to  guard  her." 

Taken  from  the  report  of  the  committee 
of  Association  of  College  Alumnae  for 
1855  on  the  Health  of  Women  Col- 
lege Graduates,  Doctor  Engelmann  shows 
sixty-six  per  cent,  with  menstrual  ir- 
regularities, as  compared  with  fifty- 
three  per  cent,  during  the  earlier  years 
of  pubertal  development,  and  states  that 
organic  trouble  increased  during  col- 
lege life  from  twenty-four  to  thirty-six 
per  cent.  In  conclusion,  Doctor  Engel- 
mann says:  "  To  the  educator  I  would 
[81] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

say  that  heed  must  be  given  the  instability 
and  susceptibility  of  the  girl  during  the 
functional  waves  which  permeate  her  en- 
tire being;  that  emotional  stimulation 
must  be  avoided,  and  decided  concessions 
must  be  made  to  the  depression,  physical 
and  psychical,  the  lessened  inhibition,  and 
physiological  control  during  the  fluctua- 
tions of  menstruation."  Our  author  calls 
attention  to  the  sex  trait  already  alluded 
to,  and  which  explains  why  so  many  col- 
lege instructors  for  both  sexes  insist  that 
women  students  make  no  complaints  and 
show  no  impairment  in  work,  due  to  func- 
tional causes.  The  author  says:  "The 
number  and  intelligence  of  those  examined 
are  such  that  we  must  accept  the  data,  and 
accept,  too,  the  fact  that  unfavorable  con- 
ditions, that  suffering  irregularity,  and 
impediment  to  work,  are  never  thoroughly 
revealed;  they  are  always  likely  to  be 
below  the  true  mark  by  reason  of  the  in- 
herent unwillingness  of  women  to  admit 
[82] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

imperfections  of  this  nature."  This  in- 
stinctive reticence  concerning  the  func- 
tional life  must  be  greatly  intensified  in 
mixed  colleges,  in  which,  if  a  woman  stu- 
dent were  periodically  absent  from  class 
work,  she  would,  in  her  exaggerated  state 
of  self -consciousness,  believe  that  the  eyes 
of  every  man  student  there  were  upon  her, 
with  a  full  understanding  of  the  reason. 
Many  college  women,  who  have  consulted 
me  professionally  concerning  their  health, 
have  stated  this  fact  as  a  positive  reason 
why  they  cannot  lighten  their  work,  and 
that  all  whom  they  knew,  who  were  func- 
tional sufferers,  felt  the  same  about  it.  If 
we  could  get  the  secret  history  of  these 
women,  it  would  reveal  a  degree  of  phys- 
ical courage  to  work  under  difficulties, 
and  a  heroism  in  suppressing  emotions, 
that  would  call  forth  our  tenderest  sym- 
pathy and  highest  admiration.  One  other 
matter  in  the  functional  disturbance  of 
women  during  educational  life  requires 
[83] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

a  brief  notice,  especially  as  it  is  touched 
upon  but  lightly  in  any  discussion  of  this 
subject.  The  evidence  upon  functional 
pain  and  excess  is  ample,  but,  as  showing 
the  profound  nervous  inhibition,  and  the 
important  fact  that  the  pelvic  organs  al- 
ways become  the  storm  centre,  the  total 
arrest  of  function  is  important.  This  ar- 
rest is  purely  emotional,  and  is  so  common 
in  educational  institutions,  that  it  has  re- 
ceived a  distinctive  name,  the  French  call- 
ing it  "  Amenorrhea  des  pensionat."  In- 
stances of  it  have  occurred  in  the  same 
student  at  the  opening  of  every  college 
year.  Its  average  duration  is  three 
months.  It  resists  all  the  usual  treatment 
of  such  a  condition,  and  terminates  spon- 
taneously. Meanwhile,  the  student  is  not 
capable  of  her  best  work,  is  languid  and 
pale,  with  indigestion  and  insomnia. 

Coeducation  has  nothing  to  do  with  its 
causation,  but,  as  contravening  the  stock 
argument    of    the    coeducationists    that 
[84] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

women  have  no  functional  traits  that 
would  conflict  with  the  routine  of  study 
followed  by  men,  it  is  conclusive  evidence 
to  the  contrary.  The  last  word  that  can 
define  this  diif  erence  has  been  spoken  by 
Dr.  Putnam  Jacobi;  she  says:  "  Our  ob- 
servations should  show  that  in  all  these 
respects  the  intermenstrual,  and  especially 
the  premenstrual,  periods,  represent  a 
pregnancy  in  miniature."  Could  sex  dif- 
ferentiation, that  has  any  possible  bearing 
upon  the  question  of  women  observing  the 
routine  of  study  prescribed  for  men,  have 
a  more  reaching  effect  than  this? 

To  quote  Dr.  Edward  H.  Clark,  in  his 
"  Sex  in  Education,"  and  I  do  so  with  all 
the  more  pleasure  from  the  fact  that  his 
little  book  was  the  first  to  focus  public 
attention  upon  the  fact  that,  while  educa- 
tion had  the  same  meaning  and  end  for 
women  as  for  men,  it  had  wide  physio- 
logical differences  in  its  method.  His 
book  appeared  in  1874,  when  coeducation 
[85] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

was  first  beginning  to  assume  its  aggres- 
sive form,  and  anything  in  opposition  was 
sure  to  be  roundly  abused. 

Few  books  ever  were  more  virulently  as- 
sailed. He  roused  a  campaign  of  abuse, 
the  sure  indication  of  a  weak  cause,  and 
among  the  multitude  of  replies  not  one 
refuted  a  single  fact  stated  by  Doctor 
Clark.  "  They  may  study,"  he  says,  "  the 
same  books,  and  attain  equal  results,  but 
should  not  follow  the  same  methods. 
Mary  can  master  Virgil  and  Euclid  as 
well  as  George ;  but  both  will  be  dwarfed, 
—  defrauded  of  their  rightful  attain- 
ments, —  if  both  are  confined  to  the 
same  methods.  It  is  said  that  Elena  Cor- 
naro,  the  accomplished  professor  of  six 
languages,  whose  statue  adorns  and  honors 
Padua,  was  educated  like  a  boy.  This 
means  that  she  was  initiated  into,  and  mas- 
tered, the  studies  that  were  considered  to 
be  the  peculiar  dower  of  men.  It  does 
not  mean  that  her  life  was  a  man's  life, 
[86] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

her  way  of  study  a  man's  way  of  study, 
or  that,  in  acquiring  six  languages,  she 
ignored  her  own  organization.  Women 
who  choose  to  do  so  can  master  the  hu- 
manities and  the  mathematics,  encounter 
the  labor  of  the  law  and  the  pulpit,  endure 
the  hardness  of  physics,  and  the  conflicts 
of  politics;  but  they  must  do  it  all  in 
woman's  way,  not  in  man's  way.  In  all 
their  work  they  must  respect  their  organi- 
zation and  remain  women,  not  strive  to  be 
men,  or  they  will  ignominiously  fail.  For 
both  sexes,  there  is  no  exception  to  the  law 
that  their  greatest  power  and  largest  at- 
tainment lie  in  the  perfect  development 
of  their  organization.  Wherein  they  are 
men,  they  should  be  educated  as  men; 
wherein  they  are  women,  they  should  be 
educated  as  women.  The  physiological 
motto  is,  educate  a  man  for  manhood,  a 
woman  for  womanhood,  both  for  human- 
ity. In  this  lies  the  hope  of  the  race."  It 
must  not  be  the  conclusion  of  the  reader 
[87] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

from  the  foregoing  that  these  limitations 
are  confined  to  the  college  girl.  The  girl 
in  the  counting-room  and  store,  or  factory, 
labors  under  the  same  functional  disadvan- 
tages. With  the  latter,  however,  it  is  less 
trying  to  keep  a  fair  average  of  physical 
work  than  it  is  for  the  college  girl  to  keep 
on  an  effectual  level  with  men  in  purely 
intellectual  work.  The  working  girl  has 
the  advantage  of  a  sturdier  physique, 
while  the  woman  student  is  a  product  of 
the  schools  all  through  her  life,  and  has 
developed  the  intellectual  at  the  expense 
of  the  physical  side  of  her  organization. 
She  has  in  that  degree  increased  the  zone 
that  is  responsive  to  physical  suffering, 
and  without  the  hardened  fibre  of  nerve 
and  muscle  that  enables  her  to  endure. 
Women  enter  college  only  half  prepared 
—  she  is  perfect  in  her  prescribed  studies, 
but  her  physical  training  has  been  entirely 
neglected.  In  nearly  all  secondary  schools, 
no  attention  is  paid  to  physical  education 
[88] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

of  girls.  The  boys  fare  better,  not  because 
they  receive  any  more  attention  along 
these  lines,  but  in  the  high  schools  the  boy 
is  at  an  age  when  athletics  appeal  to  him, 
and  voluntary  sporting  clubs  keep  him  in 
good  training.  Simply  to  show  how  this 
essential  to  education  is  neglected  in  sec- 
ondary schools,  it  is  only  necessary  to 
mention  the  instance  of  Syracuse,  New 
York,  in  which  city  a  high  school  was 
erected  at  a  cost  of  $400,000,  without  a 
gymnasium,  or  a  place  in  the  building  in 
which  one  could  be  installed.  The  college 
girl  does  her  first  gymnasium  work  after 
she  enters  college.  Coming  into  her  life 
at  a  period  when  nutrition  is  centring 
upon  function,  which  is  only  on  the 
threshold  of  maturity,  it  is  difficult  to 
divert  this  nutrition  in  the  direction  of 
muscular  development.  The  gymnasium 
work  of  the  young  men  is  carried  on  for 
a  different  object  than  that  of  young 
women.  Outside  athletics  is  what  he  is 
[89] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

working  for,  and  compared  to  which  the 
work  of  the  young  woman  is  like  a  pen- 
itential sacrifice.  It  is  a  common  expe- 
rience among  physicians  of  a  university 
town  to  write  letters,  calling  the  attention 
of  physical  directors  to  some  young 
woman  who  is  being  pushed  too  far  in  her 
training.  It  is  the  old  cry  of  the  girl  who 
will  struggle  on  and  not  complain.  On 
the  sexual  side  of  her  life,  a  young  woman 
is  a  moral  coward,  with  a  huge  preponder- 
ance of  physical  courage.  There  is  a  sad 
lack  of  discretion  in  those  who  direct  the 
physical  work  of  college  girls.  No  atten- 
tion is  paid  to  functional  periods,  and  she 
cannot  "  cut  her  gym  "  without  getting 
marked.  The  writer  could  name  several 
delicate  girls  who  left  college  on  account 
of  their  inability  to  meet  the  demands  of 
gymnasium  work. 

The  coeducationist  has  one  stereotyped 
reply  to  this.     "  The  woman's  health  is 
perfect.    She  is  never  absent  from  recita- 
[90] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

tions  or  from  her  physical  training.  She 
never  complains,  and  she  compares  more 
than  favorably  with  that  of  the  men. 
Therefore  she  is  well,  and  can't  suffer 
more  than  a  man,  because  if  she  did,  how 
could  she  do  her  work? "  "  This  talk 
about  girls  suffering  pain  and  lassitude 
and  mental  tire  at  certain  times  is  senti- 
mentalism  and  nonsense.  A  few  may  do 
so,  we  don't  know  about  it,  we  teach 
them  and  we  know.  Coeducation  has 
come  to  stay."  The  reader  may  search 
through  the  literature  of  the  subject,  and 
if  he  can  find  any  other  answers  than  those 
summarized  above,  he  has  discovered  a 
logical  and  sympathetic  professor  in  a  col- 
lege for  both  sexes,  an  individual  who  has 
had  hitherto  a  mythical  existence.  There 
has  never  been  the  slightest  reference  to  the 
fact  that  sixty  per  cent,  of  young  women 
are  functional  sufferers,  that  at  such  times 
they  need  rest,  not  long  periods,  but  short 
and  often  repeated  periods  of  rest,  as  Dr. 
[91] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

Putnam  Jacobi  shows.  The  inference  is 
forced  upon  one  that  they  either  are  want- 
ing in  candor,  or  are  ignorant.  If  they 
object  to  this  indictment  of  unfairness  or 
ignorance,  then  why  do  they  not  meet  the 
facts  as  thoroughly  established  by  scien- 
tific and  competent  observers  upon  the 
subject,  in  the  interest  of  truth  and  the 
physical  and  mental  well-being  of  the 
women  who  are  entrusted  to  their  care? 
Instead  of  that,  they  one  and  all  assert 
what  is  false,  and  studiously  ignore  the 
teachings  of  science. 

Colleges  for  both  sexes  either  make  no 
reports  upon  the  health  of  students,  or, 
when  reports  are  made,  they  are  so  com- 
piled that  they  have  no  scientific  value. 
In  Volume  II.,  page  1888,  of  the  Re- 
port for  1899  - 1900  of  the  Commissioner 
of  Education  at  Washington,  we  are 
enabled  to  trace  the  histories  of  some 
of  these  women.  We  first  take  the  statis- 
tics given  in  the  great  group  of  colleges 
[92] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

condensed  in  the  Northern  Central  Divi- 
sion, comprising  twelve  States.  This 
division  is  taken  for  the  reason  that  it 
has  the  largest  college  population,  and 
that  in  this  group  coeducation  has  the 
strongest  foothold.  There  are  10,620 
women  students,  of  whom  only  fourteen 
per  cent,  complete  their  college  course  by 
taking  the  various  bachelor  degrees.  The 
question  is  obvious:  is  this  enormous  loss 
of  eighty-six  per  cent,  due  in  any  way 
to  impaired  health,  or  physical  break- 
down, or  did  eighty-six  per  cent,  of  the 
women  find  after  its  trial  that  coeducation 
was  a  failure?  It  is  probable  that  the 
two  factors  are  mixed,  and  it  would  be 
important  to  know  which  factor  governed. 
Contrasting  with  this  the  group  comprised 
in  the  Northern  Atlantic  Division,  which 
President  Murray,  in  Collier's  Weekly, 
with  a  wit  which  was  keenly  appreciated 
by  coeducationists,  called  a  narrow  strip 
of  seaboard  as  provincial  as  Honduras. 
[93] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

The  women  students  number  only  2,675, 
of  whom  eighteen  per  cent,  complete  their 
college  course.  In  the  absence  of  carefully 
collected  statistics,  it  would  be  impossible 
to  say  what  proportion  of  this  number  of 
failures  is  due  to  impaired  health.  Prob- 
ably it  is  only  a  comparatively  small  num- 
ber. It  is  not  so  much  a  matter  of  phys- 
ical breakdown  during  the  pursuit  of 
student  life  as  it  is  a  failure  of  coeducation 
itself  to  meet  the  expectations  of  the 
women  in  its  educational  test. 

That  young  women  can  follow  men  in 
the  same  studies,  with  the  same  unremit- 
ting study  periods,  with  her  radical  func- 
tional differences,  appears  upon  the  face 
of  it  an  unreasonable  proposition.  Yet  it 
is  one  that  is  made  without  any  qualifica- 
tion by  the  advocates  of  bisexual  educa- 
tion. A  sad  feature  of  this  side  of  the 
question  is  that  the  breakdown  may  not 
occur  during  college,  but  come  to  her  like 
a  heritage  of  her  violated  physiological 
[94] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

life  when  the  final  strain  is  made  upon  her 
vitality  by  motherhood.  It  is  the  edu- 
cated young  mothers  that  show  the  sad 
havoc  made  by  maternity;  the  class  that 
has  developed  the  cerebral  faculties  at  the 
expense  of  the  brawn  and  muscle  needed 
at  this  supreme  hour  of  a  woman's  life.  It 
is  among  this  class  that  we  find  the  failure 
of  physiological  function  that  results  in 
sterility,  in  anaemia,  in  neurasthenia,  and 
hysteria.  Among  them  we  find  the  carp- 
ing wife,  the  woman  who  bears  the  burden 
of  an  unsatisfied  life,  of  unappeased 
longings  that  make  life  so  hard  to  bear 
and  make  her,  to  those  who  love  her,  so 
difficult  to  understand.  Coeducation  ought 
to  aid  and  to  conserve  the  race,  the  race 
of  young  women  upon  whom  the  nation 
relies  to  preserve  and  keep  vital  the  colo- 
nial ideal.  Faults  of  education,  of  train- 
ing, are  causing  a  profligate  waste  of  this 
precious  element  in  the  national  life.  We 
are  able  to  preserve  the  virility  of  the  men 
[95] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

who  will  carry  onward  the  colonial  tradi- 
tion, but  we  fail  to  keep  intact  the  func- 
tional stability  of  the  woman  who  must 
contribute  of  her  womanhood,  if  we  are 
to  preserve  that  regnant  race  which  is 
known  among  all  the  earth  as  the  Amer- 
ican. 

We  are  justified  in  demanding  of  those 
who  are  in  charge  of  the  education  and 
training  of  this  class  of  young  women 
that  they  permit  no  spirit  of  commercial- 
ism to  stand  in  the  way  of  reform.  A 
system  of  education  that  fails  to  build 
a  strong  and  healthy  body,  that  is  heed- 
less of  the  inexorable  laws  of  sex,  will, 
at  some  future  time,  find  itself  on  trial 
at  the  bar  of  public  opinion,  and  will  be 
measured,  not  by  its  standard  of  educa- 
tion, but  by  the  damage  it  has  caused 
to  the  vitality  of  American  women.  It 
may  be  heard  from  every  side  that  the 
American  of  the  colonial  strain  is  dy- 
ing out.  This  is  positively  true,  and  is 
[96] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

due  to  a  diminishing  birth  rate,  which, 
if  it  continues  at  its  present  ratio,  will 
result  in  extinction  in  the  course  of  a 
century.  It  is  almost  impossible  to  be- 
lieve that  an  honorable  man  will  make  as- 
sertions that  amount  to  falsehood  simply 
to  make  a  point  in  an  argument.  Pres- 
ident Nicholas  Murray,  in  his  paper  al- 
ready quoted,  says:  "  Statistics  prove 
that  women  students  and  women  grad- 
uates are  healthier  than  their  married 
sisters."  This  is  simply  what  the  writer 
states,  that  marriage  and  motherhood  are 
the  crucial  tests  of  the  American  woman's 
vitality,  and  in  which  she  is  found  want- 
ing. With  fine  consistency  and  a  logic 
peculiar  to  himself,  he  continues:  "The 
statistics  show  that  there  are  fewer  child- 
less marriages  among  them,  and  that  they 
have  a  larger  proportion  of  children." 
The  statistics  are  all  the  other  way,  that 
there  are  more  childless  marriages  and  a 
smaller  number  of  children  to  each  mar- 
[97] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

riage  than  is  found  among  the  American 
woman  otherwise  trained  and  educated. 
Well  may  President  Murray  remark  near 
the  conclusion  of  his  article,  "  A  prejudice 
well  held  is  worth  two  convictions."  Co- 
education has  not  been  the  only  factor  in 
a  restricted  birth-rate,  as  it  is  of  too  recent 
growth,  but,  going  back  to  1870,  in  elab- 
orate articles  on  the  decrease  of  the  birth- 
rate among  American  families,  by  Dr. 
Nathan  Allen,  of  Lowell,  he  affords  se- 
rious matter  for  thought  on  the  part  of 
coeducationists  who  have  a  tendency  to 
quote  false  statistics.  It  will  be  a  sad  day 
for  America  when  the  story  of  those  who 
created  the  Empire  of  the  People  is  pre- 
served in  the  voiceless  words  of  the  printed 
page,  instead  of  being  vitalized  by  the 
current  of  living  tradition. 


[98] 


CHAPTER   IV 

Does  Coeducation  Educate  ? 

^  COEDUCATION  assumes  it  to  be  true  that 
men  and  women,  in  the  final  education, 
which  fits  them  for  their  various  duties 
in  life,  require  the  same  education  both 
in  methods  and  kind.—  If  this  is  correct, 
then  the  training  of  the  sexes  in  mixed 
colleges  is  based  upon  justly  assumed 
premises;  if  it  is  not,  then  coeducation 
is  a  retrogression  instead  of  an  advance, 
and  is  effectual  only  in  doing  incalcu- 
lable harm  to  those  who  submit  to  the 
method.  In  higher  education  the  old 
idea  of  the  humanities  for  culture  is  giv- 
ing place  to  education  for  the  sake  of  the 
utilities.  Universities  of  the  first  rank 
[99] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

are  cutting  down  their  four  years'  curric- 
ulum, filling  their  last  year  with  elective 
work  so  that  those  who  enter  the  profes- 
sional schools  can  complete  their  college 
and  professional  work  in  seven  years  in- 
stead of  eight.  Here  educators  practically 
admit  that  preparatory  college  work  must 
depart  from  old  standards  and  take  spe- 
cial directions  with  a  view  of  the  best 
training  for  the  different  lines  of  profes- 
sional study.  The  lawyer,  the  doctor,  and 
the  man  who  is  preparing  for  a  teaching 
career,  each  specialize  differently  in  his 
junior  college  year,  both  with  a  view  of 
saving  time  and  for  better  fitness  for 
future  work.  There  is  no  doubt  but  that 
this  concession  on  the  part  of  colleges  is 
a  direct  advance  as  it  conforms  to  the 
utilitarian  and  commercial  period  in  which 
we  live. 

This  is  a  direct  challenge  to  the  system 
of  education  as  carried  out  in  mixed  col- 
leges.    Change  their  curriculum  as  they 
[100] 


FOR  HIGHEE  COEDUCATION 

may,  they  cannot  alter  the  fact  that  the 
theory  of  coeducation  is  lagging  hope- 
lessly behind  so  far  as  it  can  furnish  any 
course  of  electives  which  will  prepare  men 
and  women  with  special  fitness  for  their 
widely  different  careers.  The  sex  problem 
intervenes,  as  it  always  has  done,  and  as 
it  always  will  do.  Industrial  feminism 
has  so  broadened  that  her  education  must 
conform  to  her  new  industrial  relations.  In 
technical  education  this  has  been  given 
practical  form,  but  not  in  the  college  cur- 
riculum, or  in  professional  schools.  There 
men  and  women  are  educated  on  identical 
lines  without  any  reference  to  the  wide 
divergence  that  in  after-life  defines  their 
careers  even  in  the  same  profession.  This 
is  not  due  to  those  who  outlined  the  cur- 
ricula of  the  mixed  colleges,  but  it  was 
a  concession  to  meet  the  demands  of 
woman,  who  has,  from  too  hasty  general- 
ization, given  herself  up  to  the  false 
theory  that  if  she  were  to  be  educated 
[101] 


N^S  UNFITNESS 


along  the  identical  lines  that  time-honored 
traditions  and  experience  have  proved 
were  the  best  for  man,  she  would  be  able 
to  do  a  man's  work  in  the  same  way  that 
man  does  it.  She  has  assumed  that  edu- 
cation is  able  to  suppress  the  sexual  dif- 
ferences that  exist,  not  alone  physically, 
but  that  which  is  equally  marked  in  the 
mentality  of  men  and  women.  These 
differences,  when  applied  to  women,  have 
been  called  sexual  limitations,  but  sex 
assigns  no  limit  to  the  intellectual  proc- 
esses of  men  and  women.  These  differ- 
ences are  not  limitations,  but  divergences, 
in  mental  products.  She  simply  cannot 
take  man's  point  of  view,  and  the  more 
mature  she  is  and  the  more  thoroughly 
educated  and  specialized,  the  more  widely 
she  diverges  from  mary  When  industrial 
feminism  has  reached  a  higher  level,  when 
women  have  created  their  own  standards, 
and  ceased  to  compare  themselves  indus- 
trially with  men,  they  will  work  as  effec- 
[102] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

tually  and  be  given  the  same  recognition. 
This  is  not  saying  that  there  are  two 
standards  of  work,  one  for  men  and  the 
other  for  women.  There  is  but  one  stand- 
ard for  work,  that  of  efficiency,  and  those 
for  whom  the  work  is  rendered  will  apply 
it  rigidly  to  men  and  women  alike.  Until 
woman  has  recognized  her  own  standard 
and  measured  her  efficiency  thereby,  she 
will  never  do  her  best  work,  and  show 
effectually  along  what  lines  she  is  capable 
of  competition  with  man.  In  order  to 
create  her  standard  of  efficiency,  she  must 
begin  to  plan  a  system  of  education  that 
will  be  most  eff ective  in  creating  a  special 
fitness  for  her  work.  She  will  never  do 
this  until  she  has  reconsidered  her  line  of 
argument  by  which  she  formulated  the 
crude  theory  that  an  education  identical 
with  that  acquired  by  man  was  the  one 
thing  needed.  I  believe  if  woman  were  to 
do  this,  and  abandon  the  male  standard  by 
which  she  has  fettered  her  best  efforts, 
[103] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

she  would  not  only  receive  the  same  indus- 
trial recognition,  but  she  would  excel  him 
along  any  lines  of  work  inside  of  her  phys- 
ical limitations. 

And  first,  coeducation  in  colleges  or- 
ganized upon  the  basis  of  a  single  sex,  and 
that  sex  man,  must  be  abandoned.  Woman 
has  given  it  many  years  of  trial,  and 
she  ought  to  have  been  convinced  ere  this 
that  it  was  a  flat  failure.  She  has  not 
bettered  her  position  in  the  professions. 
She  is  subordinated  by  man  when  she 
ought  to  be,  by  her  mental  abilities,  his 
coequal.  She  has  labored  by  his  side  as 
diligently  and  as  effectually  as  he  has. 
Nevertheless  he  has  carried  off  the  prize, 
while  the  best  that  can  be  said  of  him 
is  that  he  was  her  intellectual  equal.  Will 
the  woman  who  so  determinedly  advocates 
her  right  to  coeducation  stop  and  reflect 
upon  the  fact  that  the  education  in  which 
she  has  had  a  share  was  the  product  of 
ages  of  experience,  and  designed  solely 
[  104  ] 


FOE  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

for  man;  to  develop  his  fitness  for  his 
elected  life-work,  and  not  to  develop  her 
fitness  for  hers.  Coeducation,  therefore, 
unless  radically  modified  for  woman's  par- 
ticipation in  it,  is  a  rank  injustice  to 
woman,  and  does  violence  to  those  fine 
intellectual  qualities  that  she  may  justly 
claim  as  an  endowment/ 

Men  who  advocate  coeducation  have 
seen  and  admitted  sexual  differences  in 
mental  endowment  that  demand  unlike 
educational  treatment.  President  Jordan, 
in  his  Popular  Science  Monthly  article, 
says:  "  Women  take  up  higher  education 
because  they  enjoy  it;  men  because  their 
careers  depend  on  it.  Only  men,  broadly 
speaking,  are  capable  of  objective  studies. 
Only  men  can  learn  to  face  fact  without 
flinching,  unswayed  by  feeling  or  prefer- 
ence. The  reality  with  women  is  the  way 
the  fact  affects  them.  Original  investiga- 
tion, creative  art,  the  resolute  facing  of 
the  world  as  it  is,  belong  to  man's  world, 
[105] 


WOMAN^S  UNFIT^ESS 

not  at  all  to  that  of  the  average  woman. 
That  women  in  college  do  as  good  work 
as  men  is  beyond  question.  In  the  uni- 
versity they  do  not,  for  this  difference 
exists,  the  rare  exception  only  proving  the 
rule,  that  women  excel  in  technique,  men 
in  actual  achievement.  If  instruction 
through  investigation  is  the  real  work  of 
the  university,  then  in  the  real  university 
the  work  of  the  most  gifted  woman  may 
be  only  play."  Elsewhere  he  says: 
"  Shall  we  give  our  girls  the  same  educa- 
tion as  our  boys?  Yes  and  no.  If  we 
mean  by  the  same,  an  equal  degree  of 
breadth  and  thoroughness,  an  equal  fitness 
for  high  thinking  and  wise  acting,  yes,  let 
it  be  the  same.  If  we  mean  this:  shall 
we  reach  this  end  by  exactly  the  same 
course  of  study,  then  the  answer  must  be 
no.  For  the  same  course  of  study  will 
not  yield  the  same  results  with  different 
persons."  President  Butler,  of  Columbia, 
in  an  article  in  Collier's  Weekly,  super- 
[106] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

ficially  says:  "  No  two  men  require  just 
the  same  training,  much  less  all  men.  The 
same  is  true  of  women,  they  being  human. 
It  appears,  then,  that  the  system  of  edu- 
cation must  be  elastic  enough  to  take  care 
of  infinitely  varied  individualities.  We 
are  just  leaving  this  and  acting  accord- 
ingly." 

Making  due  allowance  for  President 
Butler's  prejudices,  he  does  not  mean 
what  he  says.  There  are  not  an  infinite 
number  of  inhabitants  on  earth,  much  less 
individualities. 

Professor  Slosson,  in  an  article  in  the 
Independent^  already  referred  to,  says: 
"  No  two  persons  should  be  taught  the 
same  things,  or  in  the  same  way,  and  the 
direction  of  educational  progress  in  the 
future  will  be,  I  hope,  toward  greater  dif- 
ferentiation of  studies,  methods,  and  aims. 
If  this  occurs,  there  will  be,  I  believe,  a 
more  complete  separation  of  the  sexes  than 
now  prevails  in  educational  schools." 
[107] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

Whether  women  will  realize  the  error, 
and  act  as  energetically  in  its  correction 
as  they  were  strenuous  in  their  demands 
for  coeducation,  time  will  reveal.  They 
have  everything  against  them  now  —  fac- 
ulties brought  up  under  the  tradition  of 
older  education,  curricula  carefully  ma- 
tured for  the  benefit  of  man,  to  which 
they  are  obliged  to  warp  their  mental 
fabric,  and,  more  difficult  to  overcome 
than  all  else,  the  commercialism  that  ren- 
ders their  very  valuable  contributions  to 
the  college  funds  too  desirable  to  be  given 
lightly  up./ 

Let  us  change  from  the  mistakes  made 
by  women  to  the  mistakes  made  by  men, 
who  created  the  machinery  by  which 
women  are  made  to  adjust  their  mental 
status  to  that  of  men.  There  is  no  evi- 
dence forthcoming  from  the  advocates  of 
the  American  idea  that  coeducation  as 
practised  is  a  hybrid  produced  by  the  un- 
holy union  between  two  hostile  theories. 
[108] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

Already  in  colleges  for  men,  in  the  front 
rank  of  influence  and  progress,  the  old 
classical  cult  is  on  its  final  trial  as  to  its 
utility  and  educational  value.  What  mod- 
ifications have  taken  place,  or  those  which 
are  yet  to  be,  are  in  the  interest  of  man. 
The  bisexual  idea  takes  no  part  in  the 
new  curriculum.  This  is  advance;  it  is 
evolution  to  a  higher  level  in  educational 
methods.  Can  the  mixed  colleges  join  iri 
this  advance,  and,  if  they  do,  can  they 
model  their  changed  methods  after  that 
of  the  single  sex  institutions,  where  the 
evolution  is  limited  in  its  benefits  to  men 
alone?  If  they  adopt  the  latter,  woman 
must  be  left  out  in  the  plan  of  betterment, 
and  be  made  to  take  her  chances  in  the 
future  as  she  has  done  in  the  past.  If, 
however,  woman  is  to  receive  due  consider- 
ation in  whatever  improvement  in  methods 
they  deem  fit  to  adopt,  it  must  be  given 
her  at  the  expense  of  the  more  perfect 
system  adopted  by  the  single  sex  college. 
[109] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

In  any  event,  coeducation  cannot  be  kept 
in  the  front  rank  of  improvement.  It  is 
hopelessly  handicapped  by  striving  to 
make  a  single  organization  perform  two 
functions.  The  conviction  cannot  be 
evaded  that  it  stands  in  the  way  of  prog- 
ress. This  may  be  a  subject  upon  which 
the  advocates  of  coeducation  may  en- 
deavor to  establish  a  contrary  conclusion 
now,  but  the  time  is  not  remote  when  the 
truth  of  our  contention  will  be  self-evi- 
dent. With  women  in  clubs  and  as- 
sociations, united  in  State  and  national 
organizations,  all  demanding  the  so-called 
privileges  and  immunities,  real  or  imag- 
inary, of  men,  the  authorities  of  the 
mixed  colleges  will  have  a  difficult  task 
to  convince  women  that  a  man's  education, 
either  in  college  or  the  professional  and 
technical  schools,  is  not  the  better  way  to 
fit  her  to  equal  her  coworker  man  in  the 
value  of  his  labor.  The  strenuous  de- 
mands of  women  have  carried  the  author- 
[110] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

ities  of  colleges,  honestly  striving  to  do 
their  best,  off  their  feet.  Professors  in 
coeducational  institutions  have  confessed 
that  the  extent  of  the  evil  was  recognized, 
but  so  great  was  the  pressure  brought  to 
bear  by  women  that  no  correction  ap- 
peared possible.  There  is  no  evasion  of 
the  fact  that  coeducation  is  popular  with 
women ;  still  there  is  not  a  college  in  which 
it  exists,  that,  if  it  were  left  to  the  vote 
of  the  men,  it  would  not  be  promptly  sup- 
pressed. It  cannot  be  denied  that  men, 
who  earn  their  degrees  in  coeducational 
colleges,  on  going  out,  find  that  they  have 
to  take  a  lower  rank  than  the  men  who 
graduate  at  Yale,  Harvard,  or  Union. 
While  this  does  not  lessen  the  value  of  the 
education  they  have  acquired  at  their  alma 
mater,  it  does  impair  the  social  value  of 
what  they  have  worked  and  paid  their 
money  for. 

(In  every  way,  socially,  educationally, 

and  economically,  coeducation  gives  less 

[111] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

out  of  college  life  than  the  students  of  the 
single-sex  colleges  get  out  of  theirs.  That 
a  change  may  be  reached,  there  must  be 
a  campaign  of  education  among  women 
outside  of  college  lines,  —  the  hard,  bitter 
education  of  experience  in  her  battle  of 
life  where  competition  knows  no  mercy. 
As  long  as  woman's  plaint  is  heard  of 
scanty  recognition  and  inadequate  com- 
pensation, just  so  long  she  may  know  that 
the  old  errors  in  her  educational  training 
prevail.  The  trustees  who  have  seen  in 
coeducation  a  matter  of  revenue  only,  will 
make  haste  to  restore  the  order  of  single- 
sex  colleges  when  they  find  that  men  are 
deserting  their  institutions.  Millions  can 
be  lavished  upon  them  without  avail,  as 
was  proved  by  the  Chicago  University, 
which  had  surrendered  so  thoroughly  to 
the  sex  theory  that  young  men  left  the 
institution  to  preserve  their  dignity.  It 
was  one  of  the  marvels  of  college  admin- 
[112] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

istration  to  witness  the  quick  change  of 
conviction  among  the  authorities. 

It  is  among  two-sex  institutions  that 
have  grafted  the  university  idea  upon  the 
original  type  of  college  that  the  most 
glaring  injustice  is  measured  out  to  the 
women  students.  The  medical  school,  the 
law  school,  and  the  post-graduate  courses 
in  the  mechanical  arts  and  applied  sciences 
are  all  modelled  upon  the  needs  of  the  one 
sex  in  the  practical  relations  of  life.  Let 
us  examine  her  opportunities  in  medical 
education  by  the  side  of  men.  It  is  here 
that  the  greatest  injustice  is  done  to  her. 
In  elementary  medicine  and  the  coordinate 
branches,  under  the  modern  method  of 
text-book  recitations,  her  chances  are 
equal,  but  it  is  on  the  practical  side  that 
she  is  made  to  suffer  the  penalties  of  the 
sex.  She  must  be  a  brave  woman,  to  he- 
roically overcome  what  is  most  repellent 
to  her  woman's  instinct,  or  she  will  find 
herself  thrown  upon  the  world  to  earn  her 
[113] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

own  living  only  half -educated  in  her 
chosen  calling,  and  she  must  do  this  in 
the  battle  with  a  competition  that  is  merci- 
less. Can  it  be  supposed  that  a  young 
woman  can  suppress  the  heredity  of  ages 
of  sexual  environment  and  tradition,  and 
look  unmoved  upon  the  grossest  exhibition 
of  the  male  form,  knowing  that  she  is 
under  the  scrutiny  of  the  unsympathetic 
glances  of  the  men  of  her  class,  and  pre- 
serve through  such  an  ordeal  a  calmly  re-* 
ceptive  mind?  It  is  not  a  matter  of 
modesty,  it  is  one  of  sex,  which  has 
been  ignored  all  through  her  career  as 
a  subject  of  coeducation.  What  woman 
feels  and  resents  is  not  an  attack  on  her 
modesty,  but  on  her  right  of  sexual  ret- 
icence. A  man  may  be  as  modest  as  a 
woman,  but  he  does  not  mentally  retreat 
before  the  exhibition  of  the  sexual  ideal- 
A  man  is  only  half -sex,  his  coarser  fibre, 
his  lower  tone  of  emotional  life,  make  sex 
with  him  something  casual,  to  be  encoun- 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

tered  and  then  forgotten.  Woman  is  all 
sex,  her  faculty  of  potential  motherhood, 
the  periodical  insistence  of  her  sexual  life, 
like  a  stigmata,  forces  the  logic  of  her 
being  into  her  conscious  existence.  It  be- 
comes with  her  a  physical  and  a  mental 
attribute.  She  cannot  forget.  It  is  this 
ever  present  consciousness  that  makes  her 
repel  the  outward  token,  and  throw 
around  it  a  reticence  that  is  to  her  sacred. 
Its  invasion  rouses  her  to  resistance,  not 
against  her  sex,  but  against  whatsoever 
would  lay  bare  her  consciousness  of  phys- 
ical womanhood.  In  this  lies  her  weak- 
ness in  the  hard  competition  with  men,  but 
it  is  also  her  armor. 

In  no  other  relation  are  these  traits  so 
nearly  strained  to  the  breaking-point  as 
in  coeducational  medicine,  and  in  none  are 
they  more  brutally  ignored.  Do  medical 
women  need  the  same  education  in  the 
practical  side  of  education  and  training 
as  do  medical  men?  It  can  be  positively 
[115] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

answered  no.  A  woman  enters  upon  her 
practical  career  a  specialist.  A  specialty 
with  a  man  physician  is  a  matter  of  choice, 
with  a  woman  it  is  one  of  necessity.  A 
woman  treats  the  ailments  of  her  sex,  ad- 
mittedly one  of  the  most  difficult  branches 
of  medicine.  Let  a  single  instance  of  the 
manner  in  which  the  woman  student  is 
helped  to  specialize  in  her  important 
branch  suffice,  especially  as  one  of  the 
best  and  most  thorough  of  the  country 
schools  of  medicine  will  be  put  in  evidence, 
the  medical  department  of  Syracuse  Uni- 
versity. Gynecology  is  taught  only  dur- 
ing the  last  or  senior  year.  The  announce- 
ment reads  as  follows:  "  Didactic  lectures, 
two  sessions  a  week  for  four  months.  Clin- 
ical lectures,  one  session  a  vweek  for  four 
months."  Thus  all  the  woman  student  can 
learn  of  what  will  constitute  her  life-work 
is  acquired  on  the  theoretical  side  in  thirty- 
two  lectures,  and  on  the  practical  side  in 
sixteen  clinics.  Within  the  knowledge  of 
[116] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

the  author  no  other  two-sex  medical  school 
offers  anything  better.  If  women  were 
given  the  same  opportunities  for  post- 
graduate hospital  appointments  as  the 
male  graduate,  the  situation  would  be  par- 
tially relieved,  but  they  are  not,  as  but  few 
hospitals  throughout  the  country  are  open 
to  the  appointment  of  women  internes. 

"  In  medicine,"  says  Mr.  Finck,  "  fe- 
male practitioners  are  now,  and  always 
will  be,  chiefly  specialists  in  women's 
diseases,  which  cannot  be  taught  in  mixed 
classes.  The  Chicago  Medical  College 
came  to  grief  just  a  year  ago,  after  thirty- 
two  years  of  existence,  because  it  was 
organized  on  the  theory  that  women  should 
have  exactly  the  same  training  in  medi- 
cine and  surgery  as  men."  (The  Inde- 
pendent. )  Mr.  Finck  only  needed  to  add, 
the  same  training  in  the  same  way  as  men, 
to  make  his  position  complete. 

The  medical  school  will  offer  the  de- 
fence that  it  is  not  its  function  to  educate 
[117] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

specialists,  a  point  well  taken  if  they  had 
not  invited  into  their  student  body  a  class 
that  must  from  the  necessity  of  their  lim- 
itations become  specialists  from  the  first 
day  they  offer  their  services  to  the  public. 
Is  this  a  fair  and  equitable  division  of 
medical  education  for  men  who  may  be- 
come gynecologists  if  they  please,  and  for 
women  who  become  gynecologists  because 
they  must?  Why  women  submit  to  this 
when  there  are  well-equipped  medical 
schools  for  women,  where  they  are  special- 
ized during  their  student  life,  and  well 
fitted  to  enter  upon  their  life-work,  is  one 
of  the  anomalies  fostered  by  the  coeduca^ 
tional  idea.  They  have  been  taught  to 
believe  that  they  cannot  compete  with 
men  unless  they  are  trained  along  his  lines, 
or  unless  so  educated  that  they  have  lost 
something  that  gives  to  man  his  preem- 
inence in  professional  life.  Woman  will 
miss  her  true  place  in  medicine  until  she 
realizes  that  it  is  her  sex  and  the  cosex 
[118] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

of  those  who  seek  her  skill  and  sympathy 
that  define  her  place  as  a  medical  woman, 
and  that  to  be  made  equal  to  the  demands 
that  will  inevitably  be  made  upon  her  from 
the  very  beginning  of  her  career,  she  must 
be  educated,  not  as  men  are,  but  as  women 
ought  to  be. 

Although  women  are  not  as  assiduously 
seeking  entrance  into  the  legal  profession 
as  they  are  into  medicine,  yet  even  here 
her  work  will  differ  from  that  of  men  in 
the  same  calling  of  life,  and  her  usefulness 
and  success  will  depend  upon  how  well 
she  has  been  differentiated  in  education 
and  training  to  give  her  special  fitness  for 
her  legal  career.  In  all  the  practical  sides 
of  life  for  which  women  fit  themselves  by 
special  education,  it  is  not  in  the  funda- 
mentals in  which  lies  the  difference  in 
training,  but  in  the  more  limited  and  tech- 
nical side  which  she  will  require  by  reason 
of  her  sex. 

There  is  one  profession  in  which  sex 
[119] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

offers  no  obstacle  to  a  successful  career, 
but  on  the  contrary  is  adorned  and  made 
all  the  more  effectual  by  those  traits 
which  hamper  her  in  other  callings.  It  is 
the  profession  of  teaching,  in  which  she 
more  than  keeps  her  place  in  the  front, 
and  is  not  in  competition  with  man  except 
in  the  matter  of  compensation.  Even  here 
she  specializes  to  a  degree  that  is  not  de- 
manded of  her  male  fellow  student.  He 
specializes  only  in  what  he  has  elected  to 
teach;  the  woman,  taught  by  the  inflexible 
methods  implied  by  coeducation,  special- 
izes in  the  same  manner  and  degree,  while 
the  fact  is  overlooked  by  those  responsible 
for  her  education  that  her  career  as  a 
teacher  will  but  rarely  follow  along  the 
same  lines.  She  is  thus  obliged  to  further 
specialize  as  to  what  methods  will  be 
needed.  This  the  colleges  for  both  sexes 
do  not  teach  in  their  pedagogical  course. 
That  knowledge  she  must  acquire  after 
she  has  entered  upon  her  work  at  the  ex- 
[120] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

pense  sometimes  of  her  reputation  and  her 
professional  pride.  Any  school  board,  or 
superintendent,  could  testify  to  the  doubt 
as  to  fitness  that  attends  the  appointment 
of  a  young  college  woman  to  high  school 
or  academy  work.  In  Syracuse,  Superin- 
tendent Blodgett  positively  stated  that  he 
would  recommend  no  college  graduate 
who  had  not  acquired  her  probational  ex- 
perience elsewhere.  It  may  be  asked,  is 
not  this  true  of  any  young  teacher?  It 
is  not  to  an  equal  degree  among  the 
graduates  of  State  normal  schools.  She 
specializes  there  in  methods  with  sole  ref- 
erence as  to  what  she  is  to  teach.  Practice 
and  the  science  of  her  profession  are  ac- 
quired side  by  side,  and,  while  coeducation 
is  the  rule,  men  and  women  are  taught  the 
same  pedagogical  art  for  the  simple  reason 
that  they  are  prepared  to  teach  the  same 
things  to  pupils  of  the  same  educational 
grade.  If  the  double-sex  colleges  were  to 
open  departments  for  the  training  of 
[121] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

grammar  and  high-school  teachers,  the 
woman  would  have  an  equal  chance  with 
her  male  coworker.  But  the  coeducational 
colleges  cannot  do  this;  their  work  must 
meet  the  demands  of  men,  and  there  are 
but  few  college  men  who  do  not  hope  to 
do  better  than  to  become  grammar  or  high- 
school  teachers.  That  coeducation  fails  to 
prepare  woman  in  the  best  manner  for  a 
profession  in  which  she  has  reached  the 
highest  distinction,  and  that  those  who 
direct  these  institutions  are  conscious  of 
their  deficiencies,  is  proven  by  the  fact 
that  in  the  coeducational  college  of  teach- 
ers and  professors  less  than  two  per  cent, 
are  women.  If  women  were  given  rec- 
ognition upon  the  teaching  staff  of  col- 
leges for  both  sexes,  there  is  but  little 
doubt  that  many  of  the  social  complica- 
tions that  mar  the  harmony  of  these  in- 
stitutions would  not  occur,  or  would  be 
minimized,  as  women  by  both  natural  tact 
and  sympathy  are  better  fitted  than  men 
[122] 


FOE  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

to  deal  with  the  psychic  moments  of  the 
young  and  emotional  of  their  sex.  The 
spirit  of  commercialism  which  rules  in 
these  colleges  would  not  tolerate  placing 
women  on  a  parity  with  men  in  the  teach- 
ing force,  as  the  male  element  in  the  stu- 
dent body  would  resent  it  as  an  encroach- 
ment on  their  rights,  as  women  in  many 
of  these  institutions  are  tolerated,  rather 
than  respected. 

In  view  of  the  restricted  opportunities 
of  woman  to  enter  the  higher  ranks  of 
professional  teachers,  she  is  allowed,  and 
even  encouraged,  to  fritter  away  precious 
time  in  doing  elaborate  postgraduate 
work  with  a  view  to  earning  advanced  de- 
grees that  can  be  of  no  possible  use  to 
her  except  that  she  may  be  prepared  to 
take  a  professor's  chair,  which  we  have 
already  shown,  by  the  small  ratios  of 
women  professors  in  mixed  colleges,  is 
from  necessity  nearly  closed  against  her. 
In  the  science  courses  of  these  colleges  she 
[123] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

is  induced  to  specialize,  with  a  view  to  pro- 
fessional work  in  architecture,  geology, 
chemistry,  and  electricity,  which,  if  she  is 
not  to  teach  these  subjects,  is  wasted  time, 
as  her  physical  limitations  would  seriously 
hamper  her  if  she  followed  them  practi- 
cally in  after-life  in  competition  with 
men.  Modern  industrial  feminism  has 
opened  many  occupations  which  were  for- 
merly restricted  to  men,  and  in  which  she 
is  an  active  and  successful  competitor,  but 
it  will  be  observed  that  this  invasion  of 
man's  industrial  field  begins  when  woman 
is  physically  the  coequal  of  man,  and  ends 
abruptly  at  the  line  where  this  equality 
ceases  and  man's  physical  superiority  be- 
gins. In  the  higher  education  of  women 
this  line  must  be  known  and  strictly  ob- 
served if  women  are  to  be  given  an  equal 
chance  in  active  life  in  which  the  inex- 
orable law  of  commercialism  rules.  In 
the  mixed  college,  in  which  women  are 
educated  on  the  standard  and  after  the 
[  124  ] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

method  of  men,  can  this  line  be  followed, 
or  is  any  attempt  made  to  follow  it?  It 
must  be  known  to  every  competent  edu- 
cator that  her  active  life  must  diverge 
from  that  of  man,  and  that  beyond  this 
industrial  line  there  can  be  nothing  in 
common  between  them. 

Education  from  the  grammar  school  to 
the  college  has  but  one  object  in  view, 
namely,  to  make  good  citizens  and  to  fit 
the  subject  for  the  career  in  life  best 
adapted  to  success  and  happiness.  The 
thousands  of  young  women  in  coeduca- 
tional colleges  are  not  seeking  education 
for  the  purpose  of  becoming  teachers,  doc- 
tors, lawyers,  or  professors,  but  they  are 
looking  forward  to  marriage,  maternity, 
and  social  success.  They  cannot  be  edu- 
cated too  highly,  refined  too  finely,  made 
too  womanly  for  the  destiny,  the  joys  of 
which  have  bloomed  perennially  in  the 
hearts  of  women.  The  American  woman 
is  the  most  marvellous  human  product  of 
[125] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

any  age,  or  land.  Educate,  refine,  and 
cultivate  her  and  she  lends  herself  to  this 
with  an  innate  facility;  there  is  no  grace 
lacking  to  distinguish  her  from  the  daugh- 
ter of  a  hundred  earls.  Cast  at  the  most 
plastic  period  of  her  life,  without  restraint, 
and  in  the  midst  of  a  social  environment 
that  must  blunt  her  finer  social  instincts, 
without  the  advice  of  the  older  and  cul- 
tured of  her  sex,  coeducation  can  give  her 
nothing  in  return  for  the  cost  of  this. 

In  view  of  the  facts  presented,  coedu- 
cation cannot  be  regarded  as  an  advance 
in  educational  methods,  or  as  giving  an 
adequate  return  for  the  time  spent  or  the 
possible  dangers  that  attend  the  system. 
If  not  an  advance,  then  it  is  a  retroaction, 
and  a  misdirection  of  educational  efforts. 
Its  methods  are  wrong,  and  the  social 
environment  which  the  system  creates  is 
hostile  to  sound  education  and  good  man- 
ners. 

The  young  woman  graduate  has  no  re- 
[126] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

sources  except  teaching  or  matrimony,  as 
but  few  of  them  enter  the  professions. 
As  already  shown  (Chapter  II.)  she  is 
above  teaching  children  in  the  primary 
schools,  and  until  her  egoism  is  toned 
down  by  contact  with  the  asperities  of  real 
life  she  is  above  matrimony  as  well.  She 
is  not  fitted  for  commercial  work,  because 
she  has  never  been  taught  practical  busi- 
ness methods.  She  joins  the  great  army 
of  unemployed,  prevented,  by  what  Presi- 
dent Jordan  calls  the  "  true  college  spirit," 
from  seeking  a  new  education  in  a  wage- 
earning  occupation.  The  literature  of  the 
coeducation  movement  may  be  searched 
in  vain  for  any  demand  for  an  elective 
business  training  such  as  would  bring  the 
young  woman  graduate  into  actual  com- 
petition with  the  young  man  graduate  who 
enters  business.  A  few  colleges  have 
bookkeeping  courses,  more  with  a  view  to 
teaching  than  for  practical  use.  Nowhere 
are  the  typewriter  and  stenography  given 
[127] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

any  place,  without  a  knowledge  of  which 
most  business  offices  are  closed  to  the 
applicant. 

;x  A  doubt  is  cast  upon  the  educational 
value  of  mixed  colleges  with  a  curricula 
common  to  both  sexes  by  the  fact  that 
those  who  have  seriously  studied  the  sub- 
ject are  not  in  agreement  concerning  the 
education  of  women.  The  president  of 
Bryn  Mawr  says  that  women  ought  to  be 
educated  after  the  manner  of  men.  Pres- 
idents Murray,  Harper,  Quimby,  Jordan, 
and  Eliot  say  that  she  requires  a  different 
course  of  study.  Among  experts  who  have 
had  excellent  opportunities  of  observing 
woman  in  the  rough  and  in  the  educated 
product,  there  is  no  accord  in  opinion  as 
to  the  value  of  coeducation.  This  diver- 
gence on  the  part  of  educators  must  be 
logically  explainable.  Is  it  not  that  they 
are  disappointed  in  the  results?  The 
women  who  have  been  so  trained  have  not 
shown  the  scholarship,  the  fitness  for  the 
[128] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

after  earning  life,  that  they  had  hoped 
for.  That  when  the  theoretical  phase  of 
coeducation  was  passed,  and  they  were 
confronted  by  the  results,  there  was  ineffi- 
ciency, lack  of  purpose,  and  unfitness  for 
practical  life  for  women  trained  on  a 
theory,  that  was  not  found  among  women 
who  were  not  coeducated,  or  had  received 
no  college  education. 


[129] 


CHAPTER   V 

The  Social  Side   of  Life  in  Mixed 
Colleges 

THE  relations  existing  among  the  young 
men  and  women  in  colleges  for  both  sexes 
have  centred  the  attention  of  the  public 
upon  the  problem  of  coeducation.  It  has 
afforded  the  public  more  subjects  of  com- 
plaint and  criticism,  and  given  the  college 
authorities  more  opportunities  to  defend, 
than  all  other  phases  of  the  question  com- 
bined. From  an  educational  point  of 
view  it  has  not  the  importance  of  some 
of  the  topics  discussed  here,  but  it  is  one 
that  appeals  to  all  those  who  have  daugh- 
ters undergoing  the  trials  of  coeducation, 
and  to  that  larger  public  that  takes  either 
[130] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

a  genuine  or  a  morbid  interest  in  whatever 
excites  a  constantly  renewed  attention. 
The  escapades  of  the  students  afford  a 
never-failing  interest  to  the  readers  of 
newspapers,  while  the  more  glaring 
breaches  of  social  convention  are  sent 
broadcast  over  the  country  by  the  news 
agencies.  The  attitude  of  the  press  toward 
this  side  of  education  is  either  one  of  com- 
ical narration  or  of  scorching  comment, 
so  that  the  important  and  serious  prob- 
lem of  higher  education  for  women  has, 
through  the  questionable  social  attitude 
forced  upon  them  by  coeducation,  lost  its 
dignity  and  become  a  matter  of  doubt  and 
apprehension  on  the  part  of  all  right- 
thinking  people. 

It  is  proper,  before  going  further,  to 
allow  the  advocates  of  the  mixed  college 
methods  to  state  what  they  are  doing,  or 
expect  to  do,  for  young  men  and  women 
in  a  social  way,  because  it  is  in  this  direc- 
tion that  they  claim  to  reach  the  better 
[131] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

and  more  practical  results.  These  are 
among  the  latest  utterances  upon  the  sub- 
ject, and  will  be  given  without  comment, 
in  order  that  the  reader  may  draw  his  own 
conclusions  from  contrasting  these  state- 
ments of  mere  opinion  on  the  part  of  coed- 
ucators  with  the  facts  as  they  actually 
occur. 

President  Butler  says:  "  A  wise  college 
president  wrote  a  few  years  ago  that  this 
intertraining  and  equal  training  take  the 
simper  out  of  the  young  woman  and  the 
roughness  out  of  the  young  man.  He  was 
right.  The  woman  who  grows  up  sur- 
rounded by  women  and  taught  only  by 
women,  and  the  man  who  grows  up  sur- 
rounded by  men  and  taught  only  by  men, 
are  a  long  time  maturing.  Both  are  ab- 
normal. The  artificiality  and  the  ab- 
surdity of  the  ordinary  relations  between 
men  and  women  are  chiefly  due  to  social 
traditions,  which  gave  rise  to  the  system 
of  separate  education.  Comradeship  and 
[132] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

friendship  are  eliminated,  and  the  only 
conceivable  associations  with  the  other  sex 
are  love  and  marriage." 

President  Jordan  says:  "  Another  con- 
dition very  common  and  very  undesirable 
is  that  in  which  young  women  live  at  home 
and  traverse  a  city  twice  each  day  on  rail- 
way or  street  cars  to  meet  their  recitations 
in  some  college.  The  greatest  instrument 
of  culture  in  a  college  is  the  college  atmos- 
phere, the  personal  influence  exerted  by 
its  professors  and  students.  The  college 
atmosphere  develops  feebly  in  the  rush  of 
a  great  city.  The  spurstudenten,  or  rail- 
way-track students,  as  the  Germans  call 
them,  the  students  who  live  far  from  the 
university,  get  very  little  of  this  atmos- 
phere. The  young  woman  who  attends 
the  university  under  these  conditions  con- 
tributes nothing  to  the  university  atmos- 
phere, and  therefore  receives  very  little 
from  it.  If  young  women  enter  the  col- 
leges, they  should  demand  that  suitable 
[133] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

places  be  made  for  them.  Failing  to  find 
this,  they  should  look  for  it  somewhere 
else."  Previous  to  this  quotation,  he  says: 
"  When  young  women  have  no  residence 
devoted  to  their  use,  and  are  forced  to 
rent  parlors  and  garrets  in  private  houses 
of  an  unsympathetic  village,  associations 
which  develop  vulgarity  cannot  be  used 
for  the  promotion  of  culture  either  for 
men  or  for  women.  That  the  influence 
of  cultured  women  on  the  whole  is  op- 
posed to  vulgarity  is  a  powerful  argument 
for  education." 

Prof.  E.  E.  Slosson,  of  the  University 
of  Wyoming,  says  in  a  very  recent  article 
in  the  Independent:  "  The  sole  remedy  — 
or  preventative,  for  I  know  of  no  remedy 
—  for  sexual  hyperesthesia,  is  normal 
casual  contact  between  men  and  women, 
especially  when  young,  in  their  daily 
tasks  and  pleasures.  As  in  electricity,  the 
more  complete  the  insulation,  the  higher 
the  potential  rises  on  each  side  until  in- 
[134] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

stead  of  comparatively  harmless  sparkling 
we  get  a  thunderbolt.  No  amount  of  for- 
mal meeting  in  society  will  accomplish  this 
purpose.  All  balls  are  masked  balls.  To 
separate  the  sexes  at  the  ages  of,  say 
thirty-five  to  forty,  or  nine  to  twelve, 
would  do  little  harm,  but  to  separate  them 
completely,  or,  what  is  still  worse,  incom- 
pletely, between  the  ages  of  fifteen  to 
twenty,  is  often  injurious.  I  willingly 
admit  that  coeducation  will  not  work  well 
in  some  classes  of  society  and  with  certain 
people.  In  fact,  I  think  it  requires  a 
high  standard  of  morals  and  intelligence 
to  be  even  tolerable.  There  are  girls 
who  are  not  even  fit  to  be  sent  to  a  coedu- 
cational college;  who  get  harm  and  do 
harm.  When  such  are  detected,  the  pres- 
ident usually  invites  them  to  his  private 
office,  and  gives  them  the  same  advice  that 
Hamlet  gave  to  Ophelia.  But  it  should 
be  said  in  fairness  that  such  cases  are  more 
[135] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

often  the  result  of  perverted  training  than 
of  any  congenital  defect." 

President  Barnard,  as  quoted  in  Report 
of  Commissioner  of  Education  at  Wash- 
ington, 1900-01,  says:  "But  it  is  still 
objected  that  though  the  association  of 
young  women  with  young  men  in  college 
may  be  beneficial  to  the  ruder  sex,  it  is 
likely  to  be  otherwise  to  the  gentler.  The 
delicacy  and  reserve  which  constitute  in 
so  high  a  degree  the  charm  of  the  female 
character  are  liable,  it  is.  said,  to  be  worn 
off  in  the  unceremonious  intercourse  of 
academic  life,  and  the  girl  who  enters 
college  a  modest,  shrinking  maiden  is 
likely  to  come  out  a  romping  hoiden  or  a 
self -asserting  dogmatist.  Those  who  make 
this  objection  argue  rather  from  assumed 
premises  than  from  any  facts  of  obser- 
vation." 

Having  given  the  assertions  of  the  ad- 
vocates of  coeducation  concerning  the 
social  life  in  mixed  colleges,  let  us  give 
[136] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

in  contrast  a  few  incidents  that  lead  one 
to  believe  that  the  irrepressible  problem  of 
sex  will,  when  left  to  the  operation  of  its 
pristine  laws,  effect  its  own  solution. 
These  incidents  are  taken  from  the  daily 
press,  some  local  and  others  coming 
through  the  associated  press.  If  not  true, 
it  would  have  been  well  for  the  reputa- 
tions of  the  institutions  concerned  to  have 
demanded  immediate  retraction.  As  the 
statements  were  never  denied  or  retracted, 
it  is  perfectly  proper  to  assume  that  they 
are  true.  There  is  ample  material  of  this 
character  to  make  a  volume,  but  space 
can  only  be  given  to  such  as  will  demon- 
strate the  condition  of  social  life  created 
in  colleges  in  which  the  sexes  hold  unre- 
strained relations. 

The  following  is  from  the  New  York 
Times  of  October  18,  1902.  A  young 
woman  during  the  night  desired  to  remove 
some  freshman  colors  placed  on  the  roof 
of  a  building.  "  The  fire-escape  over 
[137] 


WOMAN'S  U'NFITNESS 

which  the  ascent  was  made  is  in  front  of 
Willard  Hall,  and  leads  from  the  fourth 
floor  to  the  roof.  It  leans  from  the  build- 
ing as  it  leads  to  the  roof,  making  the  feat 
a  daring  one.  After  the  young  woman 
descended,  she  admitted  that  she  was 
frightened  as  she  climbed  the  iron  ladder, 
and  when  she  leaned  over  the  side  of  the 
building  to  place  the  sophomore  banner; 
the  fact  that  the  skylight  had  been  ordered 
closed  by  the  authorities  in  charge  of  the 
hall  left  the  fire-escape  as  the  only  means 
of  reaching  the  roof.  The  freshman- 
sophomore  fight  is  now  on  in  earnest." 
Further  details  are  given,  but  it  would 
not  add  to  the  significance  of  the  daring 
act  to  repeat  them  here.  This  took  place 
at  Northwestern  University,  which  has  a 
large  population  of  women  compared  to 
men  (290  men,  280  women,  in  1900). 
That  which  concerns  us  here  is  not  that 
this  woman  made  such  a  daring  and  un- 
womanly effort,  for  women  have  an  in- 
[138] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

stinctive  fear  of  climbing  and  high  places, 
but  why  did  she  wish  to  do  it,  what  force 
was  at  work  in  her  mental  equipment 
strong  enough  to  impel  her  to  act  counter 
to  the  innate  fears  that  belong  to  the  un- 
cultured woman?  It  may  be  due  to  that 
quality  in  coeducation  which,  as  President 
Murray  Butler  so  delicately  says,  "  takes 
the  simper  out  of  the  young  woman  and 
the  roughness  out  of  the  young  man,"  a 
statement  which  is  repeated  ad  nauseam 
in  all  coeducation  arguments.  It  would 
be  more  to  the  truth  to  say  that  this 
"  roughness  "  of  the  young  men,  which 
coeducation  had  failed  to  eliminate,  had 
infected  the  young  women  and  impelled 
them,  by  taking  out  their  "  simper,"  to 
emulate  the  young  men.  Many  other  in- 
cidents of  this  character  could  be  related, 
and  are  as  well  if  not  better  known  to 
coeducationists  than  to  others.  And  yet 
Mrs.  Ida  Husted  Harper,  with  great  com- 
placency, states :  "  In  not  a  single  instance 
[  139  ] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

is  an  argument  against  coeducation  given 
which  off ers  sufficient  ground  for  the  pro- 
posed retrogressive  movement."  (New 
York  Sun,  July  6,  1902.)  In  this  same 
university  the  evils  of  the  unrestrained  re- 
lation of  the  sexes  is  awakening  a  reac- 
tionary spirit.  In  the  English  classes  the 
"  coeds  "  declare  that  love-making  has  be- 
come "  too  prevalent  a  practice  and  has 
been  carried  altogether  too  far.  They 
joined  in  the  declaration  that  while  men 
were  awkward  and  women  timid  when  the 
sexes  were  separated,  there  are  concealed  in 
the  sheep's  clothing  of  coeducational  virtue 
many  ravaging  wolves.  Coeducation  in  the 
class-room  ends  in  cowalking  on  the  cam- 
pus. The  girls  contended  that,  pleasant 
as  they  were,  extended  strolls  along  the 
lake  front  were  not  conducive  to  good 
lessons."  (Associated  News,  Syracuse 
Herald,  January  25,  1903.)  It  was  at 
this  university,  as  already  related  in  an- 
other chapter,  that,  following  the  an- 
[140] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

nouncement  of  the  scholarship  awards,  the 
betrothal  of  two  young  men  to  two  senior 
coeds  was  made  known.  (New  York  Sun, 
September  28,  1902.)  It  is  very  evident 
that  there  was  no  control  of  the  relations 
of  the  sexes  on  the  part  of  the  faculty, 
and  that  a  dangerous  degree  of  license 
prevailed,  against  which  the  women  re- 
coiled in  self-defence.  Additional  facts 
illustrating  the  social  life  prevailing  in 
mixed  colleges  are  furnished  by  the  Syra- 
cuse University.  The  author  has  no  ex- 
cuse to  offer  in  referring  to  a  local  insti- 
tution, because  the  university  is  one  of  the 
best,  if  not  the  best,  coeducational  college 
in  the  United  States.  Its  student  body  is 
composed  of  a  superior  class  of  young 
women  and  men.  The  head  of  the  uni- 
versity, Chancellor  Day,  is  firm  and  con- 
scientious in  his  government,  and  the  uni-> 
versity  has  greatly  prospered  under  his 
wise  management.  The  faculty  is  a  body 
of  men,  earnest  and  faithful  in  their  work, 
[141] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

and  who,  while  they  believe  sincerely  in 
the  methods  of  coeducation,  would  not 
hesitate  to  either  segregate  or  eliminate 
women  from  the  student  body  if  they  were 
convinced  that  coeducation  was  wrong.  It 
certainly  follows  that  if  social  matters  as- 
sume a  state  of  threatening  tension  in  such 
a  carefully  conducted  university  as  Syra- 
cuse, the  conditions  existing  in  the  so- 
called  colleges  of  the  West,  for  instance, 
must  create  the  need  for  greater  force 
in  repression.  The  following  incident  il- 
lustrates the  generally  prevailing  method 
of  controlling  social  affairs  among  stu- 
dents in  mixed  colleges,  and  was  the  one 
followed  at  Syracuse  until  a  crisis  occurred 
in  the  social  life  at  the  college  in  the  winter 
of  1903. 

"  The  way  the  students  of  Syracuse 
University  take  it  upon  themselves  to  reg- 
ulate the  evils  of  coeducation  in  the  uni- 
versity was  brought  to  light  yesterday  in 
a  rather  interesting  manner.  The  uni- 
[142] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

versity  authorities  provide  no  rules  for 
the  government  of  the  students  except 
that  they  are  expected  to  abide  by  the 
laws  of  the  city  as  citizens,  and  generally 
that  is  all  that  is  needed.  Occasionally 
an  offence  occurs,  and  then  the  upper 
class  men  are  expected  to  take  the  matter 
in  hand.  Such  a  case  has  been  running 
along  for  some  time  since  the  opening 
of  college,  and  last  night  the  crisis  was 
reached.  The  offenders,  there  were  two 
of  them,  had  been  spending  most  of 
their  spare  time  '  going  fussing,'  either 
to  one  of  the  sorority  houses  or  to  one 
of  the  boarding-houses.  Saturday  night 
the  upper  class  men,  belonging  to  the 
same  fraternity  as  the  offenders,  packed 
the  young  men's  trunks,  hired  a  cart- 
man,  and  sent  them  down  early  in  the 
evening,  one  to  the  chapter-house  and 
the  other  to  the  boarding-house.  The 
trunks  were  labelled  with  the  owners'  cards 
and  the  statement  that  the  owners  would 
[143] 


WOMAN'S  UTSTFITNESS 

be  around  to  claim  a  room,  and  take  the 
first  regular  meals  Monday  morning. 
The  young  men  were  not  able  to  get  their 
trunks  back  without  stirring  up  a  deal  of 
comment  from  the  other  students  who  had 
heard  of  the  affair."  (Syracuse  Herald, 
October  21,  1902.) 

"  A  meeting  of  the  representatives  of 
the  fraternities  and  of  the  neutral  organi- 
zations of  Syracuse  University  will  be 
called  soon  by  Chancellor  Day  and  Dean 
Frank  Smalley  to  formulate  plans  for 
regulating  the  social  life  of  the  univer- 
sity. The  authorities  have  made  no  start- 
ling disclosures  and  have  discovered  no 
new  evils,  but  they  have  decided  that  it  is 
time  to  restrict  the  amount  of  *  fussing ' 
done  by  the  young  men,  and  the  number 
of  '  fudge  parties '  given  by  the  young 
women.  Fussing  is  the  term  used  to  de- 
scribe calling  on  young  women.  During 
the  last  year  or  two  evils  have  grown  up 
which  the  authorities  think  need  correct- 
[144] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

ing.  Chief  among  them  is  the  amount 
of  calling  done  by  the  young  men  upon 
the  young  women  and  the  number  of 
fudge  parties  and  dances  held,  several  of 
them  every  week.  The  fraternities,  and 
especially  the  sororities,  are  considered 
the  chief  offenders  along  the  lines  of 
parties  and  dances,  although  a  large 
number  of  small  parties  are  held  during 
the  year  by  the  various  boarding-houses 
which  are  frequented  largely  by  the 
neutrals.  The  idea  of  holding  a  dance 
at  the  chapter-houses  once  or  twice  a 
month  has  taken  hold  of  some  of  the  fra- 
ternities so  that  the  dance  has  become  a 
regular  feature  of  fraternity  life  at  those 
places.  Another  source  of  evil  is  the  num- 
ber of  freshman  parties  held  by  the  fra- 
ternities: every  one  of  the  fifteen  frater- 
nities plan  to  hold  a  party  during  the 
college  year  in  honor  of  the  freshmen; 
then  each  fraternity  usually  entertains 
during  the  year  in  honor  of  other  class 
[145] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

delegations.  Dances  are  frequently  given 
by  the  other  organizations.  The  univer- 
sity band  is  holding  a  series  of  '  band 
hops '  at  Empire  Hall  this  winter,  which 
are  held  whenever  there  is  a  week  that 
there  is  no  other  function  scheduled.  In 
addition  to  this,  two  other  societies,  the 
Double  Seven,  composed  of  sophomores, 
and  the  Moux  Head,  composed  of  juniors, 
have  been  organized  especially  for  social 
purposes. 

'  The  university  authorities  have  always 
been  in  favor  of  pleasant  social  relations 
between  the  men  and  women  students  in 
the  university,  but  they  believe  that  the 
social  whirl  has  been  kept  up  without  suffi- 
cient periods  of  rest,  and  one  case  is  re- 
ported of  a  student  who  had  declared 
repeatedly  that  he  had  no  time  for  society, 
who  had  his  life  made  miserable  for  him 
until  he  went  *  fussing '  with  the  others. 
The  authorities  say  that  what  does  the 
harm  is  the  taking  of  the  students  away 
[146] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

from  their  work  two  or  three  times  a 
week,  keeping  them  up  half  the  night, 
with  the  result  that  failures  are  recorded 
against  them  the  following  days  in  the 
class-rooms.  Letters  have  come  from  the 
parents  of  young  women  asking  that  the 
girls  be  restricted  from  attending  so  many 
affairs.  The  university  cannot  well  do 
this,  as  it  has  no  control  over  those  who 
do  not  live  in  the  dormitory,  Winchell 
Hall.  There  the  door  is  closed  at  ten 
o'clock,  and  no  one  can  get  in  later  except 
those  who  have  had  permission  to  be  out. 
This  privilege  is  granted  largely  that  the 
girls  may  attend  the  theatres,  but  even 
then  no  one  can  get  in  after  twelve  under 
any  consideration.  The  plan,  Dean  Smal- 
ley  says,  is  to  call  a  meeting  of  the 
representatives  of  the  various  student  or- 
ganizations, and  discuss  the  matter  in  an 
open  congress.  The  dean  said  that  he  did 
not  believe  in  the  laying  down  of  any 
strict  rules  on  the  matter,  but  that  it 
[147] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

should  be  discussed  in  an  open  conference, 
and  that  the  evil  should  be  adjusted  by  the 
students  themselves,  so  soon  as  they  see 
what  the  trouble  is."  (Syracuse  Herald^ 
December  13,  1902.)  The  above  extract 
represents  a  state  of  affairs  that  the  wise 
and  witty  President  Butler,  in  his  Collier's 
Weekly  article,  says  "  are  all  dead  issues," 
but  Syracuse  University  found  them  very 
much  alive,  as  we  shall  learn  when  we  find 
how  the  theory  of  the  "  open  conference  " 
worked  out  in  practice.  The  idea  that 
mixed  colleges  have  no  authority  over 
their  students  because  they  are  not  resi- 
dent in  dormitories  is  one  of  the  most 
pernicious  errors  of  the  system.  None  of 
the  poorer  colleges  have  dormitories,  and 
the  students  are  scattered  through  the 
towns  in  boarding-houses,  with  no  guides 
to  good  manners  or  good  morals.  Pres- 
ident Jordan,  in  his  Popular  Science  arti- 
cle, says  of  it:  "  Students  living  at  home 
or  in  boarding-houses  of  an  unsympathetic 
[148] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

village,  or  travelling  daily  on  railway  or 
street  cars,  can  contribute  nothing  to  the 
college  atmosphere,  the  personal  influence 
exerted  by  its  professors  and  students. 
The  young  woman  who  attends  the  uni- 
versity under  these  conditions  contributes 
nothing  to  the  university  atmosphere,  and 
therefore  receives  very  little  from  it.  She 
may  attend  her  recitations  and  pass  her  ex- 
aminations, but  she  is  in  all  essential  re- 
spects in  absentia,,  and,  so  far  as  the  best  in- 
fluences of  the  university  are  concerned, 
she  is  neither  coeducated  nor  educated.  If 
young  women  enter  colleges,  they  should 
demand  that  suitable  places  be  made  for 
them.  Failing  to  find  this,  they  should 
look  for  it  somewhere  else.  Associations 
which  develop  vulgarity  cannot  be  used 
for  the  promotion  of  culture,  either  for 
men  or  for  women."  The  facts,  however, 
show  that  President  Jordan  is  wrong 
about  the  "  college  atmosphere "  devel- 
oped by  the  dormitory  system.  Whether 
[149] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

he  would  include  the  chapter-houses  as 
offering  "  associations  which  develop  vul- 
garity," it  is  difficult  to  say,  but  as 
they  are  certainly  not  ff in  absentia"  we 
conclude  not.  From  the  evidence  already 
given,  it  appears  that  the  effort  to  create 
environments  best  calculated  to  develop 
the  college  atmosphere,  and  which  the  most 
conservative  coeducationists  believe  will 
afford  a  remedy  for  the  admitted  evils 
of  the  system,  are  the  means  of  introduc- 
ing additional  complications  in  the  social 
control  of  students  in  mixed  colleges. 
Before  the  introduction  of  chapter-houses 
and  the  erection  of  Winchell  Hall  at 
Syracuse  University,  and  while  the  women 
students  were  scattered  in  boarding- 
houses,  but  little  was  heard  of  social  ex- 
cesses or  improper  liberties  between  the 
sexes.  Here  there  was  as  complete  separa- 
tion between  the  sexes  as  was  possible. 
The  meetings  occurred  only  in  the  class- 
room or  in  the  streets.  With  concentra- 
[150] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

tion,  trouble  began.  The  young  men  were 
more  difficult  to  control.  Class  rows  at 
supper  parties  in  suburban  taverns  or  city 
hotels  were  the  cause  of  great  damage  to 
private  property.  The  moral  tone  of  the 
young  men  was  lowered,  and  nothing  but 
threats  of  wholesale  suspensions  or  expul- 
sions unless  the  damages  were  paid  for 
by  the  offending  classes  kept  the  students 
under  control.  No  sense  of  wrong  in  these 
disorders  appeared  to  appeal  to  the  young 
men.  On  the  contrary,  they  indulged  in 
disrespectful  and  hostile  criticism  of  the 
college  authorities,  until  they  felt  the  iron 
hand  of  Chancellor  Day.  Now  the  in- 
fluence of  the  "  cultured  young  women," 
from  which  President  Jordan  expects  so 
much,  was  anything  but  wholesome,  as  a 
share  of  the  hostile  comment  on  the  author- 
ities came  from  them.  Women  have  ever 
been  the  incentive  of  deeds  of  prowess  and 
strength  among  men.  From  the  belted 
knight  at  the  tourney  to  the  crude  and 
[151] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

misdirected  valor  of  a  young  man  in  a 
mixed  college,  the  plaudits  of  fair  hands 
will  always  be  the  crowning  glory.  It  is 
the  mistake  of  coeducationists  to  assume 
that  the  massing  of  young  men  and 
women  together  for  purposes  of  education 
could  in  any  way  modify  the  sexual  com- 
plexity. It  is  their  proud  boast  that  the 
presence  of  young  women  has  a  refining 
and  elevating  influence  upon  young  men 
when  mixed  in  education.  The  constant 
contention  is  made  of  the  influence  of 
"  cultured  "  young  women  upon  young 
men.  They  are  not  cultured;  they  are 
being  cultured.  Character  is  unformed. 
They  are  plastic,  unrefined,  and  have  not 
yet  attained  the  stage  of  influence.  On  the 
contrary,  it  has  been  shown  that  when  the 
young  women  were  massed,  instead  of 
scattered  in  isolated  boarding-houses*  the 
men  became  rougher  and  their  horse-play 
more  aggressive,  which  even  the  women 
strive  to  emulate,  as  we  shall  see  when  what 
[152] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEPUCATION 

may  be  called  the  assault  on  Winchell 
Hall  is  described. 

The  efforts  of  the  faculty  to  suppress 
the  pernicious  social  activity  of  the  fra- 
ternities and  clubs  by  calling  into  council 
and  cooperation  the  representatives  of  the 
student  bodies  culminated  in  an  outbreak 
of  social  license  which  caused  the  citizens 
of  Syracuse  to  hold  their  breath.  The 
following  is  the  newspaper  account  of  the 
incident,  which  resulted  from  a  condition 
of  affairs  that  had  been  in  existence  for 
some  time,  and  was  steadily  growing 
worse. 

'  Two  college  women,  one  a  junior  and 
the  other  a  freshman,  were  expelled  from 
the  university  yesterday  noon  by  Chan- 
cellor James  R.  Day  for  attending  a  dance 
at  Long  Branch  last  Friday  night.  By 
so  doing  they  disobeyed  a  regulation  of 
Winchell  Hall,  the  women's  dormitory,  at 
which  they  were  living.  This  is  the  first 
action  of  the  kind  which  has  ever  been 
[153] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

taken  by  Syracuse  University.  There 
was  broadcast  consternation  among  the 
students  of  the  university  when  it  was 
learned  that  two  of  their  number  had  been 
expelled  for  doing  something  they  had 
come  to  regard  as  only  a  harmless  amuse- 
ment. The  chancellor's  action  yesterday 
is  another  move  in  his  policy  in  guiding 
the  young  women  of  the  university  in  the 
way  he  thinks  they  should  go.  At  Win- 
chell  Hall,  which  is  university  property, 
stricter  rules  have  been  laid  down  than  ever 
before,  and  the  students  living  there  are 
expected  to  adhere  to  them.  Tuesday, 
Thursday,  and  Saturday  nights  are  call- 
ing hours,  and  all  young  women  must  be 
home  from  practice  and  college  dancing 
affairs  before  midnight.  Long  Branch 
has  been  tabooed."  Long  Branch,  it  may 
be  explained,  is  a  resort  on  Onondaga 
Lake,  with  dance-halls,  bowling-alleys, 
and  bar.  It  is  outside  the  police  jurisdic- 
tion of  the  city,  and  during  the  winter 
[154] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

months  is  a  rough  resort,  never  frequented 
by  the  better  class  of  the  community. 
"  Last  Friday  night  Mrs.  J.  A.  R.  Scott, 
chaperon  of  the  Hall,  called  the  young 
women  in  question  into  her  apartment  and 
asked  them  if  they  intended  going  to  the 
lake  to  dance  that  evening.  They  told 
her  that  such  was  their  intention,  and  they 
were  requested  not  to  go.  The  college 
men,  with  whom  the  young  women  had 
made  the  engagement  for  the  party,  called 
for  them,  and  were  made  acquainted  with 
the  rule  of  the  Hall.  There  was  a  mis- 
understanding here,  it  is  said,  and  the 
party  went  out  not  intending  to  go  to  the 
lake.  Then  the  plan  was  changed  again, 
and  it  was  decided  to  go  to  Long  Branch 
only  to  bowl.  The  students  knew  that 
other  college  women  would  be  at  Long 
Branch  that  night,  members  of  leading 
fraternities  on  University  Hill.  It  was 
finally  decided  to  go  to  the  lake  to  bowl 
only,  and  the  die  was  cast.  When  the 
[155] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

girls  and  their  escorts  reached  Long 
Branch  and  started  to  bowl,  the  music 
from  the  upper  floor  was  wafted  down  to 
them,  and  they  could  hear  the  light  steps 
of  the  dancers  as  they  glided  over  the 
smooth  floor.  Thinking  there  could  be  no 
harm  in  a  single  waltz  or  a  rousing  two- 
step,  bowling  lost  its  charm  for  them,  and 
the  party  went  to  the  dance-hall  and  spent 
a  portion  of  the  evening.  They  arrived 
home  before  midnight,  however,  according 
to  the  story.  The  next  morning  Mrs.  Scott 
was  informed  that  the  young  women  in 
question  had  gone  to  the  lake  the  night 
before.  The  matter  was  reported.  Chan- 
cellor Day  acted  yesterday.  It  is  under- 
stood that  there  is  another  young  woman 
of  the  university  living  at  Winchell  Hall 
who  may  leave  the  university  for  a  reason 
similar  to  that  which  has  brought  about 
the  expulsion  of  the  others.  The  chan- 
cellor said  last  evening  that  the  case  is 
[156] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

not  yet  decided."     (Post- Standard,  Feb- 
ruary 4,  1903.) 

As  an  evidence  of  how  deeply  this 
social  license  had  contaminated  the  stu- 
dents, both  men  and  women,  the  spirit  of 
insubordination  evoked  by  the  disciplinary 
orders  of  the  chancellor  is  sufficient. 
"  The  students  feel  that  the  authorities 
have  been  too  severe  in  expelling  these 
two  women  and  in  allowing  the  fifty  or 
seventy-five  others  who  went  across  the 
lake  to  go  free.  The  only  difference  was, 
they  say,  that  these  two  were  from  Win- 
chell  Hall,  where  the  rules  forbid  the 
women  being  out  after  twelve  o'clock,  and 
the  others  were  from  chapter-houses  and 
boarding-houses."  ( Syracuse  Evening 
Herald,  February  4,  1903.)  As  already 
stated,  this  condition  in  the  social  life  of 
the  university  grew  out  of  the  theory  that 
the  fraternities  and  inmates  of  sorority- 
houses  would  meet  in  a  proper  spirit  the 
wishes  of  the  faculty  in  limiting  the  num- 
[157] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

ber  of  social  affairs  and  for  earlier  hours, 
but  they  proved  the  chief  offenders  in 
defying  college  authority.  All  healthy 
and  proper  college  spirit  seemed  to  have 
disappeared  in  a  "  college  atmosphere  " 
different  from  that  which  President  Jor- 
dan believed  would  be  created  by  coed- 
ucation, while  the  college  authorities  at 
Syracuse  were  taught  some  unpleasant 
truths  about  the  mutual  reaction  of  young 
men  and  young  women  when  left  to 
govern  themselves. 

The  efforts  of  the  faculty  to  limit  the 
meetings  of  the  students  by  ordering  a 
stop  to  the  band  dances  was  met  by  the 
students  with  a  spirit  not  becoming  in 
those  who  enter  college  for  the  serious 
purpose  of  study  and  moral  discipline. 
From  bad  they  went  to  worse  in  organ- 
izing the  dances  across  the  lake.  When 
the  order  was  issued  placing  the  women 
in  boarding  and  sorority  houses  under  the 
same  restrictions  as  the  Winchell  Hall 
[158] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

women,  the  students  affected  by  the  order 
were  disposed  to  stand  upon  their  rights, 
quoting  the  university  catalogue,  which 
reads:  "  The  university  does  not  provide 
board  or  rooms  for  its  students.  They 
select  their  rooms  with  the  advice  of  the 
faculty,  and  become  amenable,  like  other 
citizens,  to  the  laws  and  ordinances  of 
the  city."  This  defines  the  attitude  of 
the  faculty  toward  the  students,  with 
the  result,  so  far  as  relates  to  the  women, 
as  just  described.  The  order  of  Chan- 
cellor Day  wisely  reversed  the  policy 
of  the  institution  in  this  regard.  In 
a  chapel  address  he  clinched  his  circular 
order,  and  put  an  end  to  any  rebellion  on 
the  part  of  the  women.  "It  is  said  that 
the  administration  may  have  authority 
over  Winchell  Hall,  but  not  over  the  dif- 
ferent fraternity  and  boarding  houses. 
Let  me  tell  you  that  the  university  has 
absolute  authority  over  everything  con- 
nected with  this  institution.  The  univer- 
[159] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

sity  trustees  could,  by  a  motion,  if  they 
so  desired,  remove  the  franchise  of  every 
fraternity  on  this  hill.  Fraternities,  if 
properly  run,  are  a  great  service,  but  there 
is  another  side.  They  sometimes  conceal 
members  and  protect  culprits.  The 
authority  of  this  institution  reaches  over 
all.  Whenever  the  university  speaks  the 
fraternities  and  other  clubs  will  have  to 
observe  the  rules  laid  down.  In  closing 
his  address  the  chancellor  declared  that 
the  women  of  the  university  must  be 
placed  within  greater  restrictions  than  the 
men,  not  because  they  were  more  evilly  in- 
clined, but  in  order  to  avoid  any  appear- 
ances of  a  questionable  character."  ( Syra- 
cuse Journal,  February  11,  1903.) 

Thus  falls  to  the  ground  one  of  the 
most  ardently  asserted  benefits  of  co- 
education on  the  social  equality  theory, 
namely,  the  refining  and  restraining  influ- 
ences exerted  by  the  free  and  unrestricted 
social  relation  of  the  students.  Any  un- 
[160] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

biassed  student  of  weak  human  nature 
could  predict  such  a  result  unfailing.  The 
conclusion  is  a  logical  one,  that,  according 
to  the  authorities  of  the  best  coeducational 
college  in  the  country,  young  women  can- 
not be  educated  the  same  way  as  young 
men  in  a  moral  and  social  sense. 

We  have  seen  the  bad  and  degenerating 
effect  of  young  men  upon  women  in  col- 
leges for  both  sexes;  let  us  see  if  the 
women  have  the  elevating,  refining,  and 
wholesome  influence  upon  young  men  that 
the  advocates  of  the  system  claim  they 
have.  We  shall  be  obliged  to  again  refer 
to  the  newspapers. 

The  occasion  was  the  sophomore  dinner 
at  one  of  the  hotels,  which  the  freshmen 
endeavored  to  interrupt.  Early  in  the 
evening  the  president  of  the  freshman 
class  called  on  a  young  woman  in  a  near-by 
sorority-house.  Several  sophomores  pres- 
ent proposed  that  he  do  a  few  stunts  for 
the  amusement  of  the  young  woman.  A 
[161] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

one-sided  fight  resulted,  from  which  the 
freshman  tried  to  escape  through  the 
kitchen.  Here  he  was  met  by  the  upper 
class-men  and  his  retreat  cut  off.  Addi- 
tional freshmen  coming  to  the  rescue,  a 
destructive  free  fight  resulted.  The  young 
women  of  the  house  ran  screaming  into 
the  street,  their  cries  attracting  a  crowd 
of  passers-by  and  residents  of  the  hill.  At 
the  hotel  the  rioting  was  renewed  by  the 
freshmen,  which  a  force  of  police  kept 
within  bounds.  At  the  banquet  fifty 
"  couples  "  were  present.  ( Syracuse  Jour- 
nal, February  2,  1903.) 

At  Syracuse  it  is  the  usual  thing  for 
the  freshmen  to  prevent  the  sophomore 
banquet,  but  a  peculiar  element  of  hostility 
was  added  by  the  attempt  of  some  class- 
men to  make  the  president  do  "  stunts  " 
for  the  amusement  of  young  women 
sophomores,  while  he  was  a  guest  in  their 
house.  As  good  manners,  refinement, 
gentlemanly  reserve,  and  respect  and  cour- 
[162] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

tesy  toward  women  is  claimed  to  be  a 
direct  outcome  of  the  presence  of  women 
in  coeducation,  it  is  proper  to  leave  the 
reader  to  come  to  his  own  conclusion  in 
this  case. 

A  freshman  flag  displayed  from  the 
roof  of  Winchell  Hall  caused  a  deter- 
mined assault  on  the  building  to  remove 
it.  Access  could  be  gained  to  the  roof 
only  by  the  fire-escape.  Several  men 
climbed  the  ladder.  "  Within  the  dormi- 
tory all  was  excitement.  From  the  upper 
windows  of  the  building  there  opened  a 
continuous  stream  of  water,  old  shoes, 
dismantled  books,  and  every  conceivable 
missile  at  the  men  on  the  iron  ladder.  The 
leader  kept  on  climbing;  once,  however, 
he  faltered.  A  full-grown  dictionary, 
hurled  from  a  window  two  stories  above, 
struck  him  between  the  shoulders.  The 
force  of  the  shock  knocked  his  feet  from 
the  ladder.  He  clung  fast  until  he  had 
recovered  his  breath,  and  then  continued 
[163] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

up  the  ladder.  He  was  immediately  fol- 
lowed by  several  of  his  companions,  and 
the  banner  was  soon  in  their  possession." 
(Syracuse  Journal,  February  21,  1903.) 
It  may  appear  that  the  influence  of  the 
women  on  the  sophomores  was  somewhat 
remote,  but  their  quickness  to  adopt  the 
methods  of  the  men  in  maintaining  their 
class  spirit  was  evident,  and  painfully  so, 
from  the  standpoint  of  the  coeducation- 
ists,  who  make  such  extravagant  claims 
for  the  refining  influence  of  women.  A 
few  more  incidents  and  we  shall  conclude 
the  evidence  upon  this  disagreeable  phase 
of  the  subject.  "  The  Chicago  coeds 
practised  football  tactics  in  their  contest 
for  basket-ball  prestige  on  their  new  ath- 
letic field  yesterday,  and  the  result  was 
that  one  girl  was  carried  from  the  game 
and  two  others  had  to  be  revived 
with  water  before  they  could  continue." 
(Newspaper  clipping.)  At  Cornell, 
which  is  one  of  the  most  conservative  col- 
[164] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

leges,  the  women  pattern  after  the  men, 
the  "  freshmen  "  trying  to  break  up  the 
sophomore  young  women's  supper.  They 
captured  a  member  of  the  upper  class  and 
drove  about  the  city  in  a  hack  during 
the  evening.  '(Mr.  Finck,  in  the  Inde- 
pendent. ) 

Moving-up  day  appears  to  be  an  anni- 
versary peculiar  to  Syracuse ;  what  its  na- 
ture may  be  is  not  essential  to  the  story ;  as 
the  years  passed  it  was  attended  with  more 
serious  disorders.  In  1902  the  disorders 
were  so  great  as  to  exact  pledges  from  the 
students  that  the  riotous  proceedings 
would  be  omitted  in  future.  The  year 
1903  witnessed  open  defiance  of  the 
faculty,  while  riot  reigned  upon  the  hill. 
"  Chancellor  Day  dwelt  upon  the  breach 
of  trust,  the  betrayed  confidence,  and  the 
deceitful  conduct  of  the  freshman  class." 
The  result  was  the  suspension  of  the 
freshman  class  "  until  all  trace  of  last 
night's  rowdyism  was  removed."  (Syra- 
[165] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

cuse  Journal,  May  11,  1903.)  The  fresh- 
men were  rebellious,  meetings  were  held, 
they  absented  themselves  from  chapeL 
"  The  seats  on  the  freshman  side  of  the 
house  were  entirely  vacant,  the  students 
of  neither  sex  being  present."  (Syracuse 
Evening  Herald,  May  11,  1903.)  "  Re- 
fined and  cultured  "  young  women  aiding 
and  encouraging  a  crowd  of  half -fledged 
youth  in  defiance  of  law  and  decency  is 
the  spectacle  offered  by  coeducation  in  this 
instance.  It  is  highly  probable  that  the 
young  men  would  not  have  resorted  to 
such  extremes  if  they  were  not  applauded 
by  the  young  women.  At  Northwestern 
University  the  young  men  were  accus- 
tomed to  stand  upon  the  campus  and 
whistle  fraternity  airs  near  Willard  and 
Pearson  Halls,  to  which  the  young  women 
would  respond  by  joining  them.  Dean 
Martha  Crow  discovered  that  the  young 
women  would  leave  very  early  for  prayer- 
meeting  for  the  purpose  of  meeting  the 
[166] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

men.  '  Then  came  rumors,  then  revela- 
tions, and  at  last  the  declaration  that  the 
girls  must  never  again  respond  to  calls 
beneath  their  windows."  (Press  despatch, 
Syracuse  Evening  Herald,  May  15,1903.) 
Instances  such  as  have  been  given  could 
be  increased  by  the  score  in  colleges  where 
the  unrestrained  social  relation  of  the 
sexes  is  permitted.  But  sufficient  evidence 
is  given  to  prove  that  it  is  the  social  life 
that  suffers  the  greatest  peril.  If  educa- 
tion is  to  form  character,  if  it  is  to  create 
the  wholesome  sense  of  social  reserve,  that 
is  the  safeguard  of  woman  in  after-life, 
then  the  facts  that  we  have  cited  make 
unrestricted  coeducation  the  most  danger- 
ous social  experiment  ever  undertaken.  It 
is  all  the  more  dangerous  to  the  moral 
well-being  of  the  women  students  from 
the  fact  that  these  students  come  from 
the  middle  class,  as  we  understand  the 
word  here;  that  is,  they  are  the  daughters 
mostly  of  poor  parents,  and  all  that  they 
^  [167] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

know  of  social  life  and  its  amenities  is 
learned  in  the  crude  environment  of  a  co- 
educational college.  The  professors  them-* 
selves,  to  whom  they  look  as  models  of 
social  deportment,  leave  college  or  techh 
nical  schools  to  take  their  chairs,  and  are 
grossly  ignorant  of  social  conventions, 
which  may  be  regarded  as  one  of  the 
causes  of  the  social  irregularities  that  have 
been  allowed  to  exist. 

Syracuse  University  was  one  of  the  first 
of  the  coeducational  institutions  to  admit 
the  inability  of  the  faculty  to  exert  any 
restraining  influence  over  the  social  rela- 
tions existing  among  the  students.  Up 
to  the  present  year  men  and  women  were 
allowed  to  live  in  the  same  house.  The  low 
standard  of  scholarship  of  students  so  situ- 
ated, and  social  irregularities  that  resulted, 
have  caused  the  faculty  to  extend  to  stu- 
dents in  mixed  boarding-houses  and  dor- 
mitories the  same  rules  which  have  been 
established  at  Winchell  Hall,  The  new 
[168] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

rules  say  in  part:  "  The  university  author- 
ities have  become  impressed  with  the  im- 
portance of  a  little  more  care  in  the  room- 
ing habits  of  the  students  at  the  institution. 
Therefore,  hereafter,  our  friends  who  take 
student  boarders  will  kindly  restrict  their 
roomers  to  one  sex.  We  wish  also  to  urge 
upon  you  that  our  women  students  will 
not  be  allowed  to  retain  rooms  in  any 
house  if  they  are  allowed  to  receive  young 
men  callers  in  their  rooms.  We  will  be 
grateful  to  you  if  you  will  inform  us 
promptly  if  your  roomers  do  not  regard 
reasonable  hours,  or  if  you  have  what  you 
believe  to  be  just  complaint  of  any  kind. 
Hereafter  students  will  not  be  allowed  to 
room  or  board  at  any  house  that  is  not 
registered  at  the  office  of  the  registrar  of 
the  university."  (Syracuse  Evening 
Herald,  June  6, 1903.)  If  we  are  obliged 
to  have  the  sexes  trained  in  mixed  col- 
leges, every  friend  will  rejoice  at  this 
complete  breakdown  of  the  practice  of  un- 
[169] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

restrained  social  relations  between  men 
and  women  students.  As  we  have  shown, 
in  opinions  quoted  at  the  opening  of  this 
chapter,  this  feature  of  the  method,  which 
has  caused  such  damage  both  to  the  social 
well-being  and  scholarship  at  Syracuse,  is 
regarded  as  a  necessity  in  the  formation 
of  character  and  correct  social  habits.  "  It 
takes  the  simper  out  of  a  young  woman," 
as  one  able  authority  on  coeducation  puts 
it.  It  ought,  indeed,  where  young  women 
receive  men  in  their  rooms.  One  of  the 
benefits  that  coeducationists  hold  before 
the  public  from  which  they  recruit  their 
ranks,  is  that  the  free  mingling  of  the 
sexes  in  college  education  makes  the 
men  more  manly  and  the  women  more 
womanly,  and  trains  young  men  in  the 
courtesy  and  respect  which  they  ought  to 
show  toward  women.  In  view  of  what 
has  already  been  related,  a  more  ridiculous 
claim  can  scarcely  be  imagined.  But,  leav- 
ing that  out,  we  are  not  in  debt  to  coed- 
[170] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

ucation  for  the  position  women  hold  in 
America.  Among  no  other  people  and 
under  no  other  civilization  has  woman 
enjoyed  so  high  a  place  as  here.  Chival- 
rous courtesy  and  respect  have  been 
awarded  her  from  the  strenuous  days  of 
the  Colonial  mothers  to  the  present.  This 
innate  chivalry  and  grace  which  the  Amer- 
ican man  bears  to  the  American  woman 
is  not  the  product  of  the  university  or  the 
college.  It  is  found  in  all  walks  of  life, 
and  has  been  the  admiration  of  foreigners 
and  the  boast  of  our  manhood.  It  is  the 
impulse  that  has  impelled  men  to  grant 
to  woman  her  claim  to  equal  political 
rights,  to  better  pay  for  her  labor,  that 
has  given  her  social  freedom  from  the  re- 
straints that  hedge  her  in  older  civiliza- 
tions, and  exalted  her  to  a  level  that  else- 
where she  has  never  attained.  This  springs 
from  an  impulse  higher  than  education, 
that  had  its  origin  in  our  hard  struggle 
for  political  life  and  freedom,  when 
[171] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

woman  bore  her  share  in  the  stress  and 
privation  by  the  side  of  her  male  com- 
patriot. She  earned  then  her  recognition 
and  sanctification  in  the  hearts  of  men 
who  loved  her  that  has  outworn  the  gen- 
erations, and  has  worn  ever  since  with 
matchless  grace  her  crown  of  American 
womanhood.  The  shameless  claim  that 
coeducation  will  make  our  young  men 
more  considerate  for  women  ought  to 
brand  it  as  a  sham  and  an  insult  to  our 
manhood. 

The  evidence  shows  that  there  is  noth- 
ing in  coeducation  to  elevate,  but  every- 
thing to  lower,  women  in  the  esteem  of 
her  fellow  students.  In  fact,  when  young 
women  are  exposed  to  the  deteriorating  in- 
fluences of  a  college  for  both  sexes,  she 
invites  her  own  degradation.  She  demands 
education  after  the  manner  of  men,  but 
she  also  demands  treatment  such  as  men 
give  to  men.  The  writer  became  aware 
of  this  fact  by  seeing  two  students  pass 
[172] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

in  the  street.  They  were  walking  rapidly, 
affecting  an  athletic  stride;  without  lift- 
ing his  hat  and  with  a  cold  stare,  he  said, 
"Hello,  Nan;"  she  returned  a  curt 
"  Hello,  Jack,"  and  both  passed  rapidly 
on.  This,  it  appeared,  was  correct  form. 
Some  young  men  insist  on  lifting  their 
hats,  but  they  are  regarded  as  Miss 
Nancys,  and  the  practice  is  frowned  upon 
by  the  women.  This,  of  course,  is  a  mere 
trifle,  but  trifles  make  for  home  life,  which 
the  extremists  claim  coeducation  promotes 
in  all  its  sacredness  and  purity. 


[173] 


CHAPTER   VI 

Love   and  Marriage 

THE  following  was  sent  to  the  press 
through  the  news  agencies,  and  was  widely 
published:  "Chicago,  June  20:  Ter- 
minating courtship  lasting  throughout 
their  college  course,  four  Northwestern 
University  students  announced  their  en- 
gagements on  the  stage  of  the  Auditorium. 
Following  the  announcement  of  the 
scholarship  awards,  the  betrothal  of  two 
young  men  to  two  young  senior  coeds  was 
made  known.  It  was  the  first  time  in  the 
history  of  a  Western  university  that  the 
announcement  of  student  betrothals  was 
officially  made  by  the  university  officials." 
The  chancellor  of  a  minor  university,  on 
[174] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

being  interviewed  concerning  student 
courtship  and  marriage,  is  reported  to 
have  said  that  the  more  marriages  the 
better,  as  it  was  a  good  place  to  fall  in 
love.  As  the  conversation  reported  was 
never  denied,  it  is  assumed  to  be  correct. 
Vital  statistics  record  only  three  events  in 
human  life:  birth,  marriage,  and  death. 
Marriage  implies  in  its  relationship  more 
of  happiness  and  morality,  or  more  of 
falsehood,  deceit,  and  crime  than  can  be 
crowded  into  any  other  act  between  man 
and  woman,  but  under  the  morbid  stimulus 
of  coeducation  it  is  stripped  of  the  beauty 
of  holiness  and  trotted  out  upon  a  stage 
to  be  greeted  by  the  college  yell.  It  is 
true  that  these  young  and  immature  peo- 
ple were  only  betrothed,  not  married,  and 
let  us  hope  that  these  shrinking,  timid 
maids,  with  native  modesty  refined  by  the 
exquisite  culture  which  the  advocates  of 
coeducation  would  have  us  believe  is  a 
special  feature  of  their  method,  were  dis- 
[175] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

enchanted  and  brought  back  to  the  stern 
realities  of  life  by  the   strident   college 

yell. 

In  the  towns  in  which  these  bisexual 
colleges  are  located,  nothing  so  tends  to 
bring  these  institutions  into  disrespect  as 
the  apparent  indifference  of  the  college 
authorities  to  the  open  love-affairs  be- 
tween the  students.  They  are  openly 
spoken  of  as  "  match  factories."  Court- 
ship seems  to  be  a  continuous  perform- 
ance, and  whether  with  a  view  to  mar- 
riage or  not,  only  the  Providence  which 
can  scan  the  human  mind  in  its  secret 
places  knows,  but  for  the  sake  of  purity 
and  innocence  let  us  hope.  It  may  well  be 
that  the  chancellor,  to  the  interview  with 
whom  we  have  just  referred,  took  counsel 
with  his  fears  when  he  said  the  more  mar- 
riages the  better.  He  was  a  Christian 
gentleman,  and  an  old  man  and  shrewd, 
and  from  his  long  experience  with  life 
[176] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

he  probably  was  in  full  accord  with  St. 
Paul. 

It  is  difficult  to  understand  how  staid 
and  serious  men,  to  whom  is  entrusted  the 
education  of  young  men  and  women,  can 
see  any  good  in  student  courtship  and 
marriage.  It  is  conceded  by  all  educators 
that  the  terminal  aim  of  education  is  the 
development  of  character.  A  character 
justly  balanced,  with  discrimination  and 
a  clarity  of  vision,  and  a  character  made 
strong  in  the  direction  of  self-control,  is 
the  best  and  highest  test  of  a  well-trained 
mind.  To  one  who  regards  a  question  of 
this  kind  without  prejudice,  it  would  ap- 
pear impossible  that  an  educator  could 
claim  that  a  young  man  or  woman  re- 
ceives as  a  product  of  his  intellectual 
training  this  high  criterion  fully  formed 
with  his  diploma,  but  rather  he  is  given 
the  right  direction,  he  has  acquired  a 
standard  grounded  on  rectitude  and  honor 
by  which  he  can  measure  the  character  that 
[177] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

will  mark  him  as  a  man  in  that  higher 
education  he  must  acquire  in  the  great 
university  of  practical  life.  The  advo- 
cates of  student  marriages  make  the  pos-« 
itive  assertion  that  it  is  better  for  the 
man  and  the  young  woman  to  get  married 
while  life  is  all  untried  and  is  as  yet  a 
formless  ideal.  They  are  deliberately  told 
to  get  married  as  though  it  were  a  part 
of  their  college  curriculum,  and  to  step 
forth  from  the  sheltering  arms  of  their 
alma  mater  man  and  wife,  untrained  and 
unarmed,  to  battle  with  life,  the  most  un- 
certain quantity  and  quality,  for  good  or 
otherwise,  that  can  be  condensed  in  the 
human  document.  Surely  men  will  allow 
their  prejudices  or  their  predilections  to 
give  strange  distortions  to  their  moral 
vision. 

The  writer  is  willing  to  leave  the  ques- 
tion to  the  arbitration  of  any  man  who 
has  acquired  eminence  in  his  profession,  be 
he  doctor,  lawyer,  or  engineer,  if  a  student 
[178] 


FOE  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

can  leave  college  a  married  man  before  he 
has  entered  upon  his  professional  studies, 
and  give  to  them  the  same  time,  the  same 
earnest  and  thorough  work,  as  one  who  is 
unmarried,  and  whose  mind  is  not  pre- 
occupied by  thoughts  and  emotions  for- 
eign to  the  work  before  him.  The  coed- 
ucationists  say  that  he  can.  Further,  the 
question  can  be  left  to  the  same  arbitrator. 
Can  a  young  professional  man,  doctor, 
lawyer,  or  engineer,  married  at  the  outset 
of  his  professional  career,  have  the  same 
opportunity  of  commanding  all  the 
chances  that  make  for  success  and  emi- 
nence, as  the  young  man  unhampered  by 
a  wife  until  he  has  acquired  a  fixed  posi- 
tion and  a  settled  income?  The  coeduca- 
tionist  again  says  that  he  can.  There  is 
no  holding  any  argument  with  such  peo- 
ple. They  defy  all  the  traditions  of 
experience,  good  judgment,  and  settled 
standards.  There  is  not  an  instance  in 
the  literature  of  the  question  in  which  the 
[179] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

advocates  of  coeducation  have  discussed 
the  subject  calmly,  philosophically,  and 
with  any  evidence  of  clean  hands  and 
hearts.  They  approach  a  great  problem 
of  education,  one  that  lies  at  the  nucleus 
of  the  higher  education  of  women,  with 
rank  assertion,  their  only  argument  being 
abuse  and  ridicule  of  those  who  doubt  or 
disbelieve  their  methods.  They  are  educa- 
tional pachyderms,  and  the  only  argument 
that  can  penetrate  is  the  one  that  holds  up 
before  them  the  dollar-mark.  Then  they 
can  perceive  some  logic  on  the  other  side, 
and  hasten,  like  the  Northwestern  Uni- 
versity, to  segregate,  but  not  abandon  the 
two-sex  idea. 

Many    coeducational    colleges    deliber- 
ately encourage  courtship  and  marriage. 
President  Wilkinson,  of  the  Kansas  State 
Normal  School,  says  that  the  college  pre- 
sents the  best  time  and  place  for  match- 
making.     In   President   Thwing's   book, 
'  The  College  Woman,"  he  mentions  a 
[180] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

college  in  which  a  day  following  com- 
mencement was  set  apart  as  the  day  of 
weddings.  Former  President  Fairchild, 
of  Oberlin  College,  approved  of  college 
engagements.  President  Thwing  says  that 
coeducation  does  promote  love  and  matri- 
mony in  college,  but  that  it  does  not  pro- 
mote scholarship.  (Mr.  Finck,  in  the 
Independent.} 

In  all  that  has  been  said  by  coeduca- 
tionists  about  student  courtship  and  mar- 
riage, not  a  word  has  been  spoken  about 
the  rights  of  parents,  or  guardians,  or 
family  interests  in  these  marriages.  This 
side  of  the  student  marriages  has  been  in- 
sultingly ignored.  If  the  college  faculty 
approved  of  these  marriages,  such  a  tri- 
fling matter  as  the  consent  of  parents  or 
family  interest  in  the  marriage  of  the  son 
or  daughter  might  safely  be  regarded  as 
a  negligible  matter.  President  Jordan, 
in  his  paper  in  the  Popular  Science 
Monthly,  who  endeavors  to  be  fair  and 
[181] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

candid  after  the  coeducational  way,  while 
approving  of  these  marriages,  leaves  out 
all  paternal  wishes  or  solicitude  for  the 
interest  or  happiness  of  the  son  or  daugh- 
ter. If  you  ask  these  people  why  they 
do  this,  they  will  tell  you  that  coeduca- 
tion has  so  sharpened  the  mind  and  refined 
the  judgment  of  young  men  and  women 
that  they  may  safely  be  left  to  their  own 
discretion  about  marriage.  It  is  impos- 
sible to  conceive  of  any  other  answer  that 
will  justify  this  indifference  to  the  most 
sacred  of  human  ties,  that  of  the  parent 
for  his  child.  A  professor  in  a  college 
for  both  sexes,  to  whom  I  spoke  about 
student  courtship  and  marriage,  stated 
that  such  marriages  were  supposed  to  have 
the  parental  sanction  before  they  were 
approved  by  the  college  authorities.  But 
why  should  the  heads  of  colleges,  like 
President  Jordan,  discuss  the  subject  at 
all;  why  should  another  college  presi- 
dent recognize  it  from  the  commencement 
[182] 


.    FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

platform;  why  not  ignore  it;  why  should 
a  professor  claim,  as  though  it  were  a 
merit,  that  his  college  only  recognized 
those  engagements  when  they  have  the 
approval  of  the  parents?  Could  the  fact 
be  beaten  into  the  heads  of  men  respon- 
sible to  the  public  for  the  conduct  of  these 
two-sex  colleges  that  they  are  bringing 
education  into  disrepute,  that  they  are 
making  their  institutions  the  subject  of 
ridicule  in  the  public  press,  that  their  func- 
tion is  to  educate,  and  not  to  organize 
matrimonial  agencies,  that  they  are  help- 
ing to  wreck  professional  careers,  that  to 
nag  on  premature  marriages  they  are 
helping  to  fill  the  divorce  courts  with  the 
pitiful  tales  of  broken  hearts  and  sinful 
lives,  that  they  are  helping  to  fit  the  matri- 
monial yoke  upon  necks  which  in  after- 
life will  hold  in  bonds  that  are  a  mockery 
to  call  holy  tired  and  helpless  women  and 
hopeless,  irritable  men?  It  is  disgusting 
that  President  Jordan  should  assert  that 
[183] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

such  marriages  always  turn  out  happily, 
an  assertion  that  it  is  perfectly  safe  to 
challenge  him  to  prove.  Happy  mar- 
riages are  not  made  that  way.  They  come 
deliberately  to  men  who  know  that  they  are 
able  to  surround  the  object  of  their  love 
with  the  material  comforts  and  accessories 
that  belong  to  the  wife  of  an  educated 
man,  and  to  those  who  regard  love  as  a 
serious  thing  wherein  the  man  seeks  and 
the  woman  learns  to  love.  It  does  not 
spring  from  the  accidental  propinquity  of 
hoiden  girls  and  rollicking  young  men,  or 
from  the  formless  attachments  between 
romantic  girls  fresh  from  the  village  high 
school  and  unfledged  youths  whose  ideal 
of  life  and  its  responsibilities  must  be  as 
intangible  as  a  dream. 

One  of  the  reasons  for  the  complacent 
attitude  of  coeducational  colleges  upon 
the  subject  of  student  marriages  is  be- 
cause women  are  cheap  in  the  matrimonial 
market.  In  one  instance  that  came  under 
[184] 


TOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

the  observation  of  the  writer,  the  young 
man  was  cutting  his  classes  and  giving  up 
his  time  to  a  serious  love-affair  with  a 
young  girl  student  in  a  students'  board- 
ing-house. He  was  the  son  of  a  prominent 
and  wealthy  man,  and  as  soon  as  the  affair 
became  known  to  his  people  he  was 
promptly  removed  and  sent  to  a  single-sex 
college ;  the  worst  feature  of  the  case  was 
that  the  state  of  feelings  between  the 
couple  was  equally  known  to  the  girl's 
parents,  who  were  residents  in  a  remote 
part  of  the  town,  the  girl  going  to  the 
boarding-house  only  for  her  dinner.  This 
is  only  one  instance  of  many  others  in 
which  the  one  who  is  destined  to  become 
the  greatest  sufferer  is  the  one  whose  in- 
terests are  the  least  regarded.  It  may  not 
be  known  to  the  authorities  of  bisexual  col- 
leges, but  it  is  a  fact  well  known  to  others, 
that  some  parents  send  their  daughters 
there  for  the  deliberate  purpose  of  securing 
husbands,  or  amorous  and  designing  girls 
[185] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

persuade  their  parents  to  allow  them  to 
attend  for  that  purpose.  The  facilities 
afforded  by  these  institutions  for  such  an 
object  make  the  opportunities  afforded 
by  a  summer  resort  appear  poor  and  inad- 
equate. The  one  gives  a  scant  oppor- 
tunity at  a  high  price,  and  the  other  gives 
an  unlimited  opportunity  of  four  years 
at  a  low  price.  Can  any  one,  who  knows 
enough  of  life  to  measure  the  power  of 
women  over  men  whose  manhood  has  not 
yet  developed  into  the  full  leaf,  doubt 
what  the  result  would  be?  In  the  oppor- 
tunities afforded  by  coeducational  methods 
woman  is  not  the  tentative  side  of  the 
problem.  It  is  man  that  is  safeguarded 
by  the  precautions  of  the  parents  or  guard- 
ians. It  is  his  career  that  is  interrupted 
or  rendered  doubtful  by  a  premature 
matrimonial  experiment.  It  is  woman 
alone  whose  future  is  secured  by  marriage. 
This  is  the  social  status  that  is  given  to  the 
relative  value  of  the  union  between  the 
[186] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

sexes,  and  this  is  the  value  that  it  must 
be  given  in  the  coeducational  institutions. 
They  may  model  their  colleges  to  conform 
to  a  coeducational  basis,  but  they  cannot 
overthrow  the  usages  of  society.  The 
value  that  society  places  on  marriage  in 
its  ratio  between  the  sexes  is  the  value  that 
must  be  given  it  in  the  college  as  in  social 
life.  Woman  is  the  commodity,  man  is 
the  standard  of  value,  and  it  is  in  this 
system  of  brokerage  that  these  institutions 
assume  to  take  a  part.  The  liberty  of  the 
sexes,  which  is  an  American  idea,  is  the 
license  of  coeducation.  In  justice  to  the 
inexorable  dictum  of  society,  it  is  only 
justice  to  say  that  the  professional  man, 
whose  success  or  failure  in  life  gives  social 
status  to  the  wife,  is  the  only  unknown 
quantity  in  the  matrimonial  equation.  Yet 
the  authorities  of  these  colleges,  hardly 
any  of  whom  are  adepts  in  social  life  and 
usage,  assume  in  their  ignorance  to  ap- 
prove of  student  marriages.  A  generation 
[187] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

past  the  young  professional  man  on  the 
threshold  of  his  career  might  marry  with 
some  prospect  of  a  successful  future. 
That  time  has  passed.  The  increasing 
complexity  of  business  and  social  life 
renders  it  constantly  more  difficult  to  earn 
a  living  income  in  the  professions.  Take 
the  instance  of  a  young  doctor  located  in 
a  busy  city.  Between  the  free  dispensaries 
and  the  hospitals  with  rival  ambulance 
services,  the  clang  of  whose  gongs  can  be 
heard  hourly  in  the  streets,  the  poor  is 
as  far  beyond  his  reach  as  the  rich.  He 
has  no  prospect  except  to  wait,  unless  he 
appeals  to  the  public  as  the  master  of 
some  specialty,  to  secure  which,  if  he  is 
poor,  demands  self-denial  and  sacrifice  on 
his  part  that  but  few  have  the  courage  to 
encounter.  The  young  lawyer  is  even  in 
a  worse  plight.  The  lucrative  business  is 
in  the  possession  of  great  firms  with 
special  partners.  Crowded  as  the  courts 
are  with  pending  cases,  the  marked  tend- 
[188] 


FOE  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

ency  of  the  age  is  to  avoid  litigation.  In 
court  calendars  with  hundreds  of  cases,  not 
more  than  ten  per  cent,  actually  reach  a 
jury.  A  man  working  alone  with  a  col- 
lege education  and  a  degree  in  law  may 
regard  himself  fortunate  if  he  can  secure 
a  connection  with  some  large  firm  as  a 
collection  attorney,  the  accounts  of  which 
he  is  not  allowed  to  sue.  He  is  generally 
absorbed,  if  he  is  bright  and  active,  into 
some  legal  firm  on  a  salary  that  is  only 
remarkable  in  its  contrast  with  what  his 
education  has  cost  him. 

The  young  engineer  or  architect  is  con- 
fronted by  the  same  tendency  of  the  age 
to  concentration  of  business  and  special- 
ism. He  is  fortunate  if  he  is  able  to  se- 
cure a  salary,  and  it  is  needless  to  say  how 
small  these  salaries  are  to  the  young  grad- 
uate. And  yet  these  young  men,  bright, 
active,  and  energetic,  if  their  mental  fibre 
is  of  the  hard  and  elastic  quality  that 
makes  for  success,  will  succeed.  Now  sup- 
[189] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

pose  one  of  these  poor  young  men  marries 
on  leaving  college,  are  the  conditions  such 
as  to  make  home  happy,  can  he  lavish  upon 
a  young  wife  the  concentration  of  feeling 
and  devotion  that  the  average  young 
woman  believes  that  she  is  entitled  to  as 
a  wife,  and  will  the  first  born  be  welcomed 
with  a  joy  untinged  with  regret?  Will 
the  average  young  woman  with  social 
ambitions  give  up  a  life  of  comfort  and 
ease  to  share  the  home  of  a  young  man 
who  is  obliged  to  make  this  stern  hard 
battle,  sharing  in  his  privations,  his  rigid 
self-denials,  and  give  way  to  none  of 
those  regrets  which  are  sure  to  show  upon 
the  surface  and  make  life  bitter?  I  ask 
these  questions  not  of  professors  of  col- 
leges for  both  sexes,  or  of  such  men  as 
President  Jordan,  but  of  people  of  com- 
mon sense  and  with  a  practical  view  of 
life,  who  are  none  the  less  capable  of  love 
and  sacrifice  for  the  sake  of  those  they 
love. 

[190] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

As  more  directly  relating  to  the  college 
and  the  serious  object  of  the  training, 
education,  and  moral  discipline  of  its  un- 
dergraduates, student  courtship  and  mar- 
riage strike  a  blow  that  is  fatal  to  the 
ideal  college  life  and  purpose.  The  fun- 
damental idea  of  the  college  is  not  to  give 
one  an  education,  for  the  very  good  reason 
that  the  human  mind  cannot  be  educated 
in  four  years,  but,  as  far  as  possible,  to 
perfect  its  graduates  in  the  use  of  the 
tools,  so  to  speak,  by  the  correct  use  of 
which  the  finished  student  is  capable  of 
educating  himself.  He  has  acquired  the 
habit  of  studious  application ;  he  can  logic- 
ally arrange  and  coordinate  facts;  he  has 
acquired  the  faculty  of  correct  reasoning 
by  his  insight  into  the  higher  mathe- 
matics; in  the  laboratories,  if  he  bends  all 
his  energies  to  the  task,  he  is  placed  in  the 
great  highway  to  education,  the  knowl- 
edge of  how  to  observe  and  correctly  in- 
terpret what  he  sees.  These  are  simply 
[191] 


WOMAN'S  UKFITNESS 

the  instruments  of  education,  and  then  the 
college  leaves  him  to  educate  himself.  If 
he,  as  a  graduate  of  Yale  or  Princeton, 
assumes  the  attitude  before  the  world  that 
simply  as  such  he  is  an  educated  man,  he 
is  intellectually  doomed,  and  might  better 
have  limited  his  intellectual  training  to 
the  three  R's,  as  he  would  then  have  pre- 
served his  rectitude  against  the  damage 
of  a  false  assumption.  The  graduate  who 
realizes  that  his  college  has  done  much  in 
giving  him  a  sure  footing  on  the  way  to 
education,  if  he  follows  that  way  in  intel- 
lectual humility,  content  to  seek,  to  him 
will  come  the  satisfying  consciousness  of  a 
fulfilment  of  his  intellectual  life  and  of 
work  well  and  wisely  done. 

The  untrained  youth  who  enters  college 
and  secures  all  this  in  the  brief  space  of 
four  years  is  the  subject  of  a  moral  and 
intellectual  revolution.  It  is  a  system  of 
brain-building  that  will  demand  the  con- 
stant use  of  his  highest  faculties.  If, 
[192] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

while  he  is  undergoing  this  evolution,  the 
professor  or  college  president  who  be- 
lieves that  he  has  time  for  the  distraction 
of  love-making  must  have  lost  sight  of 
the  purpose  and  aim  of  the  training, 
which  the  observing  public  has  too  gen- 
erously taken  for  granted.  If  to  athletics 
can  be  added  student  love-making,  where 
in  the  name  of  common  sense  is  there  room 
for  what  they  are  pleased  to  call  higher 
education?  From  the  standpoint  of 
common  experience,  as  well  as  from  that 
of  the  physiologist,  let  us  consider  what 
sex-love  means  as  it  comes  to  the  healthy 
young  man  and  woman  as  student  lovers, 
probably  for  the  first  time  in  their  lives. 
With  the  student  adolescence  is  completed 
and  mature  functional  life  has  begun.  The 
conscious  life  is  held  in  the  thrall  of  the 
emotions.  It  breaks  through  the  thin 
crust  of  the  untried  and  immature  re- 
straining forces  of  the  mind.  All  the 
higher  brain  attributes  become  slaves  and 
[193] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

accomplices  of  the  overmastering  impulse, 
which  runs  riot  through  the  realm  of  the 
higher  intellectual  life.  This  is  not  too 
highly  colored  when  we  consider  that  it  is 
an  organic  emotion  that  springs  from  the 
subconscious  life  of  nerve  centres,  over 
which  the  will  has  no  control,  and  mounts 
upward  into  the  supreme  centre  of  the 
spiritual  life,  the  cerebrum.  Here  it 
revels  in  the  imagination,  invades  the  ideo- 
motor  centres,  impairs  the  memory,  dis- 
turbs the  logical  sequence  of  ideas,  and 
becomes  the  motor  factor  in  the  conscious 
life.  A  college  professor,  in  speaking 
about  student  love,  said  that  it  was  a  good 
thing  for  young  men  and  women,  as 
"  they  must  learn  to  control  such  feelings." 
Very  good;  that  form  of  learning  is  not 
included  in  the  college  curriculum;  but 
control  does  not  mean  to  suppress  when 
it  refers  to  the  strongest  emotion  known 
in  the  life  of  man ;  it  means  concealment, 
which  is  another  unhappy  feature  of  stu- 
[  194  ]  " 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

dent  love.  It  is  a  college  education  in 
deception  and  addiction  to  deceit.  An 
emotion  which  is  as  nearly  a  gift  from 
God  as  any  that  can  find  its  being  in  weak 
human  nature  is  made  a  thing  to  be  hidden 
away,  and  its  contentment,  for  which  the 
touch  of  a  hand  or  a  loving  word  suffice, 
is  made  a  sin  or  a  wrong-doing.  These 
young  people  who  are  thrown  into  the 
environment  of  stimulating  propinquity 
have  a  right  to  love,  and,  as  President 
Jordan  says  in  his  Science  Monthly  paper, 
"  the  wonder  is  rather  that  there  are  not 
more."  Under  the  conditions,  however,  in 
which  it  exists,  student  love-making  gives 
the  first  lessons  in  concealment,  and  the 
first  conviction  that  there  may  be  a  per- 
sonal gain  in  acting  a  lie.  What  may  be 
done  openly  is  safe,  that  which  must  be 
concealed  is  dangerous.  When  love  leads 
to  assignation  in  student  life  it  is  potential 
immorality.  Can  anything  that  is  possible 
to  enter  into  student  life  offer  more  serious 
[195] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

interruption  to  the  current  of  mental 
activities  that  favor  the  best  results  from 
his  time  and  opportunities?  In  some  col- 
leges there  are  chairs  of  psychology ,  with 
laboratories  and  instruments  of  precision, 
so-called.  It  is  fair  to  ask  these  professors 
in  colleges  for  men  and  women  in  the  in- 
terest of  science  to  apply  their  method  of 
research  to  the  investigation  of  student 
love,  and  deduce  from  their  ascertained 
facts  to  what  extent  the  proper  observance 
would  be  disturbed  by  the  outbreak  in  any 
two  students  of  opposite  sex  of  a  serious 
instance  of  this  emotion.  It  is  a  proper 
subject  of  scientific  investigation,  but  was 
it  ever  attempted  in  the  interest  of  coed- 
ucation? On  the  contrary,  it  is  favored  and 
encouraged.  It  is  safe  to  take  as  sober 
a  minded  man  as  President  Jordan,  in 
the  article  just  referred  to,  as  one  of  the 
most  conservative  two-sex  college  presi- 
dents. He  speaks  with  a  tone  of  regret: 
"It  is  a  constant  surprise  that  so  many 
[196] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

college  men  turn  from  their  college  asso- 
ciates and  marry  some  earlier  or  later 
acquaintance  of  inferior  ability,  inferior 
training,  and  often  inferior  personal 
charm."  In  President  Jordan's  opinion, 
which  goes  to  show  how  little  he  under- 
stands of  love,  and  how  little  he  appre- 
ciates the  men  who  go  to  college  to  study 
instead  of  making  love,  he  voices  the  al- 
most universal  sentiment  of  coeducational 
authorities  in  regard  to  student  love  and 
marriage.  Its  existence  is  a  thing  hostile 
to  the  student  life,  fatal  to  the  best  efforts 
of  mind,  a  ruinous  waste  of  some  part  of 
the  too  brief  four  years  that  must  do  so 
much  in  shaping  character  and  developing 
the  student  habit,  and  forms  no  part  of  the 
argument  these  people  offer  upon  the  sub- 
ject of  coeducation.  In  this  they  are  de- 
ceiving the  patrons  who  entrust  their  sons 
and  daughters  to  their  care,  and  are  giving 
a  retrograde  movement  to  the  cause  of 
higher  education. 

[197] 


CHAPTER   VII 

The  Shadow  Side  of  Coeducation 

A  SERIOUS  subject  seriously  considered 
may  contain  many  things  that  will  give 
painful  reading  to  some,  and  be  regarded 
as  of  doubtful  propriety  by  others.  This 
chapter  would  have  been  omitted  had  the 
statements  it  contains  been  based  upon  any 
other  evidence  than  the  personal  knowl- 
edge of  the  author.  As  such  it  must  stand 
as  a  document  against  a  policy  in  educa- 
tion that  has  made  such  a  shameful  record 
possible.  The  sin  and  disgrace  recoils  not 
upon  the  innocent  victims,  but  upon  those 
whose  ill-advised  and  crudely  matured 
plans  of  coeducation  have  brought  to- 
gether an  ill-assorted  concourse  of  both 
[198] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

sexes  without  the  solicitude  and  tender  re- 
straints of  home.  With  singular  inconse- 
quence the  imperious  laws  of  sex  have  been 
overlooked.  It  appears  impossible  to  ex- 
plain the  mental  attitude  of  coeducational 
college  authorities  upon  the  subject.  It 
is  charity  to  believe  that  it  is  due  to  igno- 
rance. The  denominational  influence, 
which  each  college  was  founded  to  pro- 
mote, was  supposed  to  throw  ample  re- 
straints about  the  students,  forgetting  that 
there  are  border-lines  in  spiritual  growth 
and  fixity  beyond  which  religion  never 
passes,  and  artificial  moral  restraints  are 
overwhelmed  by  organic  impulse  that 
obeys  the  strenous  demands  of  the  higher 
law,  and  this  law  is  the  law  of  the  God 
of  nature.  Facing  such  a  problem  as  this, 
what  is  done  to  adequately  safeguard  the 
students,  presupposing  that  coeducation  is 
to  continue  in  its  present  form? 

Religious  influence,  almost  without  ex- 
ception of  a  denominational  character,  is 
[199] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

the  most  active  agent  in  the  moral  restraint 
of  the  students.  The  promotion  of  Chris- 
tian associations  among  the  students,  with 
enforced  attendance  at  college  chapel  and 
regular  church  attendance  are  the  main 
influences  under  the  direct  control  of  the 
college  authorities.  Membership  in  the 
better  class  of  secret  societies  is  in  many 
instances  dependent  upon  the  correct  con- 
duct of  the  student.  The  suppression  of 
any  known  infraction  of  the  college  rules 
and  regulations  relating  to  conduct  or 
class  work,  and  the  college  has  gone  as 
far  as  it  can,  either  in  mixed  colleges  or 
in  those  dealing  with  but  one  sex.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  faculties  of  mixed  col- 
leges are  organized  on  the  basis  of  colleges 
for  a  single  sex.  The  vast  difference  in 
the  government  of  institutions  implied  by 
the  presence  of  both  sexes  is  not  recog- 
nized. The  chairs  are  filled  mostly  by 
young  men,  the  majority  of  whom  are 
unmarried,  whose  duties  begin  and  end 
[200] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

with  their  class-room  work,  and  however 
anxious  they  might  be  to  get  in  touch  with 
the  social  and  moral  life  of  the  students, 
they  have  but  little  tact  to  go  outside  of 
their  pedagogical  work.  In  talking  with 
a  young  professor  about  a  case  that  was 
known  to  both  of  us,  he  said:  "I  have 
had  an  interview  with  the  young  man  and 
seriously  cautioned  him,  and  it  has  done 
no  good;  of  course,  I  made  a  mistake;  I 
ought  to  have  taken  the  case  before  the 
faculty;  now  if  I  were  to  do  so  I  would 
be  denounced  by  both  classes  as  a  spy  and 
an  informer,  and  not  only  lose  my  influj 
ence  among  them,  but  I  might  even  en- 
danger my  position." 

The  majority  of  the  smaller  colleges 
have  no  dormitories  with  proper  separa- 
tion of  the  sexes,  but  students  are  taken 
into  families  for  board  and  lodging  open 
to  both  sexes.  It  was  stated  by  one  pro- 
fessor that  this  was  encouraged  as  being 
better  than  separation  of  the  students,  as 
[201] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

it  tended  to  create  an  atmosphere  of 
"  home  life."  Surely,  it  must  be  a  pro- 
fessional idea  from  the  point  of  view  of 
coeducation  if  a  boarding-house  could 
create  the  atmosphere  of  a  home  simply 
by  the  commingling  of  young  men  and 
women.  The  students  are  placed  upon 
their  honor  to  preserve  a  proper  and  dis- 
creet deportment  toward  each  other.  In 
older  countries,  where  the  sex  problem  is 
taken  practically,  the  deportment  of  the 
sexes  is  placed  upon  a  standard  of  per- 
sonal honor;  yet  a  vigilant  oversight  is 
never  relaxed  by  those  who  are  responsible 
for  the  reputation  of  young  women.  In 
this  country,  among  coeducational  insti- 
tutions, this  would  be  resented  as  an 
insulting  suspicion  of  a  young  woman's 
character.  Attending  a  college  for  men, 
she  demands  the  liberties  and  license  of 
young  men,  and  for  the  honor  of  our 
young  women  be  it  said  that  she  acquits 
herself  in  her  self-respecting  attitude 
[202] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

toward  her  own  and  the  other  sex  in  a 
manner  that  would  justify,  if  nothing  else 
were  needed,  the  theory  and  practice  of 
coeducation.  But  the  advocates  of  coed- 
ucation have  no  right  to  trade  upon  the 
innate  nobleness  and  fortitude  of  char- 
acter of  our  young  women,  without  re- 
specting it  and  throwing  about  it  every 
possible  protection.  Lead  us  not  into 
temptation,  is  the  way  the  Christian  is 
taught  to  pray  by  One  who  knows  the 
human  heart  in  all  its  weakness.  Thou- 
sands of  the  young,  the  flower  of  Ameri- 
can youth,  are  being  so  led  by  so-called 
Christian  colleges,  with  what  results  in 
wrecked  lives  or  in  unforgetable  misery 
the  Lord  who  taught  us  so  to  pray  alone 
knows.  The  young  human  being  at  the 
beginning  of  functional  activity  needs  the 
directing  and  restraining  hand  of  those 
who  have  not  outlived  the  memory  of  the 
tribulations  of  their  own  youth.  This  is 
not  a  surveillance  that  implies  doubt  or 
[203] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

suspicion;  it  is  the  natural  solicitude  of 
those  who  love  and  trust,  but  would  shield 
from  harm,  temptation,  or  the  appearance 
of  evil.  The  affections  and  emotions  are 
the  vulnerable  places  in  a  woman's  armor, 
irrespective  of  age.  Should  she  be  young, 
untried,  ignorant  of  the  world  and  of  men, 
warm-hearted  and  affectionate,  in  full 
health  and  with  abundant  nutrition,  she 
is  safeguarded  only  by  her  high  and 
romantic  ideas;  if  any  coeducator  alleges 
that  such  an  example  can  be  thrown 
among  a  miscellaneous  gathering  of  both 
sexes  for  four  years  without  moral  risk, 
I  have  no  words  that  are  proper  to  use 
which  will  fitly  describe  that  man's  igno- 
rance of  human  nature.  As  a  physician, 
we  have  watched  the  after-career  of  young 
girls,  tenderly  reared  in  Christian  homes, 
who,  at  the  psychological  moment  have 
lain  prone  before  the  victorious  emotions. 
This  type  of  young  woman  never  recruits 
the  ranks  of  the  unfortunate.  It  is  her 
[204] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

one  glimpse  at  the  shadow  side  of  life, 
whence  flows  the  fountain,  to  taste  of 
which  is  not  always  sin,  and  that  it  is 
not  sin  is  the  horror  of  it.  That  it  did 
not  come  of  unholy  desire,  but  of  emotions 
and  affections  that  are  like  peerless  gems 
in  the  diadem  of  womanhood,  makes  the 
memory  abide  with  her  always,  regrettable, 
unappeasable.  The  material  side  of  her 
future  may  not  be  touched.  I  have  known 
many  of  them  afterward  to  become  happy 
wives  and  mothers,  but  the  galled  spot 
was  there,  just  where  the  neck-yoke  that 
bears  the  burden  of  life  presses  the  hardest 
upon  her  tender  bosom.  How  many  in- 
stances such  as  this  has  coeducation  in  our 
colleges  made  possible?  Do  the  members 
of  the  faculty  know,  or,  if  they  know, 
will  they  give  us  their  experience?  The 
dean  of  a  college  where  the  sexes  are 
mixed  told  me  he  did  not  believe  that  it 
had  ever  occurred,  and  those  who  brought 
such  charges  against  Christian  colleges 
[205] 


'S  UNFITNESS 


were  unregenerate  or  unworthy  of  belief. 
The  authorities  of  mixed  colleges  have  no 
other  defence  than  a  general  denial. 

This  is  more  a  question  of  physiology 
than  of  morality,  in  the  need  of  a  suspen- 
sion of  the  unrestrained  social  contact  of 
the  sexes  during  a  period  of  early  crisis 
in  functional  activity.  This  is  the  rule 
on  the  part  of  intelligent  parents  in  every 
well-regulated  home.  That  this  crisis  is 
outlived  by  every  young  man  and  young 
woman  of  about  twenty  is  the  theory  upon 
which  coeducation  bases  its  factor  of  moral 
safety.  The  sexual  attributes  are  often- 
times referred  to  as  an  instinct.  In  the 
lower  ranges  of  animal  life  it  is  actually  a 
madness.  Man,  who  can  look  into  the 
depths  of  his  own  emotions,  knows  that 
fasting  and  prayer  and  the  macerations 
of  the  flesh  will  not  suppress  those  feel- 
ings, which  are  necessary  for  the  perpet- 
uation of  his  race.  These  spring  from  the 
activity  of  organic  life,  the  products  of 
[206] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

nerve  centres  and  of  ganglia,  with  which 
the  supreme  nerve  depot,  the  brain,  has 
nothing  to  do.  The  range  of  the  potential 
activity  of  these  emotions  has  reached  its 
maximum  when  physical  life  has  gained  its 
first  maturity.  It  is  at  this  time,  when  the 
mind  is  plastic  and  open  to  the  impressions 
of  its  environment,  that  wholesome,  re- 
straining influences  are  needed  for  sup- 
pression and  self-government.  At  this 
time  the  young  instinctively  flock  together 
in  song  and  dance,  which  is  right  and  inno- 
cent; but  in  the  normal  relations  of  the 
sexes  these  periods  of  enjoyment  cease, 
and  all  come  under  home  influence  and  re- 
straint. It  is  not  so  in  mixed  American  col- 
leges of  the  minor  class  with  the  students 
in  common  boarding-houses.  The  strain  on 
the  forces  of  self -suppression  must  be 
enormous  and  in  some  cases  pitiable.  Is  it 
any  wonder  that  the  moral  tension  some- 
times exceeds  its  limits,  and  breaks  under 
the  strain?  Education  under  conditions 
[207] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

such  as  these  appears  impossible  in  its 
higher  forms.  The  chief  end  of  education 
is  to  form  character,  to  build  up  a  high 
degree  of  receptive  intelligence,  which  will 
prolong  itself  beyond  the  period  of  train- 
ing in  constant  accretions  of  knowledge 
and  self-government.  But  here  is  edu- 
cation inviting  the  issue  of  battle  with 
the  forces  which  it  is  one  of  its  aims  to 
direct  and  control ;  trying  on  the  one  hand 
to  lead  to  culture  and  a  spiritual  life,  while 
on  the  other  it  is  cultivating  by  environ- 
ment the  lowest  form  of  organic  emotion, 
which  is  obtruding  itself  into  the  conscious 
life,  and  is  not  interchangeable  with  any- 
thing spiritual,  or  mental,  which  education 
can  create  or  promote. 

There  ought  not  to  be  any  divergent 
opinions  upon  this  vital  point  in  coeduca- 
tion. Those  who  believe  in  it  and  those 
who  do  not  ought  to  be  in  accord  here,  and 
make  the  social  life  of  the  sexes  possible 
only  in  the  class-room.  The  extreme  to 
[208] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

which  college  athletics  are  carried  is  an- 
other element  of  weakness  in  the  American 
theory  of  coeducation.  A  young  woman, 
who  will  resist  all  the  blandishments  of 
mind  and  form,  will,  in  spite  of  religious 
training,  high  social  standing,  and  educa- 
tion, drift  into  abject  sadism  in  the  pres- 
ence of  the  prowess  of  brawn  and  muscle. 
It  has  been  so  in  all  ages  of  the  world; 
from  the  classic  Olympian  games,  the 
bloody  victories  of  the  arena,  the  valor  of 
the  savage  warrior,  women  have  loved  and 
applauded. 

It  may  be  objected  that  we  are  going 
far  afield,  but  it  must  be  remembered  that 
we  are  speaking  about  the  basic  emotions 
that  sway  and  shape  human  lives  as  the 
wind  sways  the  sturdy  oak,  and  not  the 
love  that  the  poet  sings,  or  that  has 
adorned  history  with  the  sublimest  exam- 
ples of  self-sacrifice  and  devotion  that  live 
eternally  as  inspirations.  Furthermore, 
the  stimulating  effect  of  athletic  exhibi- 
[209] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

tions  by  men  upon  the  emotions  of  young 
women  at  their  most  susceptible  age,  ap- 
pears to  be  overlooked  by  those  who  have 
grafted  the  mixed  element  upon  colleges 
organized  solely  for  men,  and  to  which 
women,  irrespective  of  fitness,  are  obliged 
to  conform. 

Guardedly  as  a  matter  of  this  nature 
must  be  discussed  for  the  general  public, 
enough  has  been  said  to  show  the  possible 
evils  that  may  result  from  forcing  higher 
education  along  lines  hostile  to  the  phys- 
ical and  moral  well-being  of  young  men 
and  women.  There  are  the  potential  evils, 
but  the  actual  ones  form  one  of  the  darkest 
chapters  in  the  history  of  coeducation. 

To  give  specific  instances  of  moral 
downfall  directly  traceable  to  the  unre- 
strained relations  of  the  sexes  in  colleges 
where  coeducation  is  encouraged  to  its 
social  limits  is  painful  to  the  writer,  and 
is  sure  to  be  anything  but  agreeable  to  the 
reader.  But  it  becomes  a  duty  in  view 
[210] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

of  the  fact  that  the  advocates  of  coeduca- 
tion never  defend  the  method,  but  assault 
any  one  in  harsh  and  insulting  terms  who 
may  venture  to  question  its  merits.  Noth- 
ing but  hard  facts,  revolting  as  they  may 
be,  will  force  the  conviction  that  they  who 
object  to  coeducation  as  it  is  conducted 
in  mixed  colleges  have  valid  reasons  for 
their  objections,  and  have  a  right  to  de- 
mand a  respectful  hearing.  To  the  de- 
tailed instances  that  are  offered  in  evi- 
dence, many  more  could  be  gathered  from 
the  police  of  Syracuse,  who  maintain  a 
strict  surveillance  over  those  who  frequent 
houses  of  assignation.  It,  however,  ought 
not  to  be  necessary  to  add  instances  as 
culminative  evidence  to  convince  all  right- 
thinking  people  of  the  actual  evils  inherent 
to  the  mingling  of  the  young  adult  sexes 
in  coeducation. 

The  son  of  a  well-known  professional 
man  sought  the  advice  of  a  physician  for 
the  cure  of  a  venereal  disease  contracted 
[211] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

from  a  student.  The  patient  stated  that 
several  young  men  were  alike  affected, 
contracted  from  the  same  source.  Two  of 
them  later  sought  the  advice  of  the  same 
physician.  With  the  purpose  of  prevent- 
ing the  further  spread  of  the  disease,  one 
of  the  patients  was  induced  to  bring  the 
young  woman  to  the  physician.  She  was 
a  small  brunette,  about  twenty-two  years 
of  age,  very  evidently  in  poor  health.  She 
was  a  student  in  the  classical  course,  and 
well  along  in  her  junior  year.  She  felt 
too  keenly  the  disgrace  of  her  position  to 
give  confidence  to  her  physician,  and  it  was 
not  until  after  several  weeks,  when  her 
health  was  nearly  restored,  that  she  was 
induced  to  relate  her  history.  She  was 
the  only  daughter  of  a  widow  living  in  a 
small  village,  who  had  nearly  exhausted 
her  scant  resources  in  educating  her 
daughter.  She  had  received  her  prepar- 
atory education  in  the  local  academy, 
and  was  admitted  to  college,  conditioned 
[212] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

in  two  topics,  which  she  made  up  be- 
fore the  completion  of  her  sophomore 
year.  During  her  second  year  her  ac- 
quaintance with  a  fellow  student  had 
ripened  into  love,  and  they  became  en- 
gaged. So  far  as  worldly  position  was 
concerned  he  was  rather  superior  socially 
to  the  young  lady.  When  he  informed 
his  parents  of  the  engagement,  positive 
objections  were  made,  he  was  removed 
from  that  college  and  entered  in  another 
institution.  In  the  meanwhile,  they  were 
for  many  hours  daily  in  each  other's  so- 
ciety, often  alone,  and  love's  dream  had 
ended  in  a  fateful  reality.  Her  lover  had 
submitted  so  readily  to  the  orders  of  his 
people,  and  he  had  withdrawn  from  his 
engagement  with  so  little  show  of  feeling, 
that  to  her  unhappiness  was  added  a  dan- 
gerous element  of  cynicism  and  doubt  of 
the  existence  of  goodness  and  purity.  She 
was  of  an  ardent,  passionate  nature,  and 
in  her  unhappy  and  discouraged  state  of 
[213] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

mind  nothing  but  the  material  side  of  life 
appeared  left  to  her.  The  first  was  not 
the  final  step,  but  not  from  waywardness. 
It  was  the  morbid,  hysterical  seeking  after 
sympathy  and  consolation,  the  wounded 
spirit,  as  it  were,  finding  a  balm  and  heal- 
ing in  the  very  thing  from  which  it  had 
received  its  hurt.  In  her  weakened  powers 
of  resistance,  the  continued  fret  and 
temptation  of  her  environment,  were  added 
burdens  to  drag  her  down.  The  accident 
of  disease  appeared  the  one  thing  needed 
to  show  to  her  the  degradation  of  her 
position,  and  that  what  was  once  sancti- 
fied by  love,  as  so  many  falsely  reason,  was 
now  becoming  sin.  She  rescued  herself, 
as  many  another  has  done,  and  completed 
her  college  career  with  moderate  success. 
After  teaching  school  a  few  years  she  mar- 
ried, and  is  now  the  mother  of  several 
children. 

The  daughter  of  a  man  in  a  good  social 
position  in  a  neighboring  town  entered  col- 
[214] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

lege.  She  was  given  a  letter  of  introduc- 
tion to  a  physician,  well  known  to  her 
father,  soliciting  his  care  when  she  was 
in  need  of  professional  services.  She  pre- 
sented her  letter  at  the  only  interview  the 
physician  ever  had  with  her.  He  never 
saw  her  after,  except  on  rare  occa- 
sions in  the  street.  One  stormy  night  in 
November,  while  waiting  near  the  prin- 
cipal railroad  station  for  a  street  car, 
nearly  opposite  a  notorious  "  Raines  law 
hotel "  which  had  been  raided  many  times 
by  the  police,  all  of  which  had  been  duly, 
and  elaborately,  reported  in  the  local 
papers,  he  saw  a  couple  emerge  at  the  side 
door.  The  young  woman,  especially  in 
manner  and  dress,  differed  so  completely 
from  the  class  of  women  who  frequent 
such  resorts,  that  he  gave  her  close  atten- 
tion. Something  familiar  in  her  face  and 
figure  recalled  the  young  lady  of  the  letter. 
On  board  of  the  well-lighted  car  the  iden- 
tification was  complete:  it  was  the  same 
[215] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

young  lady.  The  problem  the  doctor  had 
to  decide  was  a  delicate  one.  Between 
loyalty  to  his  friend  and  his  duty  to  the 
young  woman,  whose  physical  well-being 
was  left  to  his  charge,  there  was  inter- 
posed the  instinctive  reluctance  of  a  man 
to  be  regarded  as  an  intruder  where  he  had 
no  business.  At  any  rate,  the  letter  of 
introduction  warranted  his  speaking  to 
her ;  she  professed  not  to  know  him,  which 
may  readily  have  been  the  truth,  as  a  year 
and  a  half,  or  more,  had  passed  since  the 
interview.  The  mention  of  her  father's 
name  and  the  letter  recalled  the  incident. 
She  showed  not  the  least  embarrassment, 
but  there  was  a  glint  of  defiance  and 
bravado  about  her  face  and  manner  that 
suggested  that  she  was  carrying  it  off 
with  a  high  hand,  and  which,  so  far  as  the 
doctor  was  concerned,  relieved  the  situa- 
tion of  some  of  its  delicacy.  She  flushed 
hotly,  not  with  shame,  for  she  was  evi- 
dently violently  angry,  when  she  was  in- 
[216] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

formed  of  the  frightful  danger  of  visiting 
a  resort  that  was  constantly  under  the 
espionage  of  the  police,  and  might  have 
led  to  her  arrest.  The  resentful  interview 
on  the  car  ended  in  a  reluctant  promise  to 
call  upon  the  doctor.  It  needed  a  sharp 
letter  to  make  her  keep  her  promise.  The 
battle  that  followed  was  one  that  threw 
a  strong  light  on  one  side  of  the  many 
phases  of  human  nature.  It  resulted  in  her 
finally  consenting  to  change  from  the  uni- 
versity to  a  single-sex  college  for  women. 
This  occurred  many  years  ago.  The  lady 
is  unmarried,  and  keeps  house  in  a  fault- 
less manner  in  a  motherless  home.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  so  long  as  it  was  regarded 
as  a  simple  question  of  veracity  between 
the  two,  the  young  woman  was  arrogantly 
defiant,  and  it  was  only  when  she  was 
convinced  that  both  she  and  her  student 
lover  had  been  seen  and  identified  by  the 
detective  who  was  assigned  to  watch  the 
[217] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

house  that  she  consented  to  change  her 
college. 

A  young  woman  in  her  junior  year  in  a 
certain  college  was  admitted  to  a  private 
room  in  a  general  hospital  suffering  from 
sepsis,  caused  by  an  attempt  to  avert  the 
consequences  of  an  affair.  The  young 
woman  was  too  sick  to  submit  to  any  direct 
inquiries  into  her  history.  The  appear- 
ance of  the  family  that  gathered  at  her 
bedside  was  that  of  the  better  class  of 
country  people.  The  condition  of  the 
patient  became  so  desperate  that  it  was 
thought  proper  to  take  some  member  of 
her  family  into  counsel.  An  older  sis- 
ter was  selected  to  bear  the  burden  of  the 
revelation.  Astonishment  and  incredulity 
was  what  was  to  be  expected  under  the 
circumstances.  Such  an  event  in  the  girl's 
life  was  nearly  impossible  from  what  she 
knew  of  her  sister's  character.  Modest, 
diffident,  and  retiring,  truthful  and  sin- 
cere, she  would  not  believe  such  an  affair 
[218] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

possible,  nor  was  her  faith  shaken  until 
she  listened  to  the  confession  of  her  sister. 
The  girl  was  loyal  to  her  lover,  and  aside 
from  his  being  a  fellow  student  his  name 
never  passed  her  lips,  in  spite  of  her  sis- 
ter's earnest  solicitations.  The  girl  finally 
recovered,  but  many  months  passed  before 
her  restoration  to  full  health.  Aside  from 
the  fact  that  she  left  college,  nothing  was 
known  of  her  after-history. 

All  criminologists  know  that  cases  of 
sexual  depravity  occur,  and  are  as  fre- 
quent in  one  sex  as  the  other.  They  also 
know  that  no  station  or  occupation  in  life 
is  exempt  from  the  occurrence  of  sporadic 
cases  of  this  unbalanced  condition  of  the 
organic  emotions.  It  is  not  an  anomaly, 
therefore,  that  the  quiet  ranks  of  students 
in  a  mixed  college  should  be  invaded  by 
the  sexual  pervert.  But  what  is  singular 
is  the  fact  that  the  young  woman,  the  sub- 
ject of  this  report,  passed  through  college 
in  spite  of  the  suspicion  against  her  which 
[219] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

existed  among  the  students.  She  had  her 
intimates  among  the  female  students,  sev- 
eral of  whom  were  observed  to  be  her  con- 
stant associates  when  in  the  streets.  As  a 
student  she  was  more  than  usually  bright 
and  quick.  She  was  also  a  medical  case, 
and  as  her  ailment  necessarily  revealed  her 
character  she  talked  with  a  total  absence  of 
reticence.  It  was  impossible  to  associate 
any  consciousness  of  sin  or  wrong-doing 
with  the  acts  which  she  openly  confessed. 
She  professed  to  believe  that  all  young 
men  and  women  were  just  like  herself  in 
respect  to  conduct,  and  so  far  as  the  young 
men  whom  she  met  are  concerned  she  may 
have  had  grounds  for  her  belief.  She  was 
too  shrewd  to  have  anything  to  do  with 
the  fellows  on  the  "  hill,"  as  she  expressed 
it.  She  became  engaged  to  one  of  them, 
who  graduated  a  year  before  her  class,  and 
who  secured  a  position  on  a  newspaper. 
When  she  graduated  she  went  West  and 
they  were  married.  Their  married  life 
[220] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

was  not  successful,  and  in  a  couple  of 
years  she  became  a  divorced  woman.  This 
case  would  have  been  omitted  were  it  not 
for  the  sincere  belief  that  in  a  college  for 
women  only  such  a  character  could  not 
have  passed  through  four  years  of  college 
life  without  detection  and  expulsion.  It 
demonstrates  the  strange  need  of  over- 
sight in  the  individual,  and  indifference  to 
one  of  the  most  important  sides  of  educa- 
tion, that  which  aids  in  character  building. 
There  is  nothing  in  a  classical  curriculum 
that  does  it.  It  is  the  handiwork  of  the 
instructor  who  sees  in  the  upbuilding  of 
a  symmetrical,  perfectly  poised  character 
the  best  side  of  education. 

These  cases  occurred  during  a  period  of 
about  eighteen  years.  A  limited  number 
of  cases  upon  which  to  predicate  a  general 
condemnation  of  a  great  system  of  educa- 
tion, but  the  offences  are  of  such  a  char- 
acter, and  so  fatally  opposed  to  all  ideals 
of  both  the  methods  and  final  results  of 
'[221] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

education,  that  a  single  instance  directly 
traceable  to  the  commingling  of  the  sexes 
in  education  is  sufficient  to  condemn  the 
method. 

A  sporadic  case  is  as  positive  proof  of 
the  existence  of  a  disease  as  an  epidemic. 

We  have  additional  evidence  furnished 
by  men  in  high  position  in  mixed  colleges, 
and  who  ought  to  know  of  these  things. 
President  Jordan,  in  his  Popular  Science 
Monthly  article,  says  "  that  evil  results 
sometimes  arise  —  not  often,  to  be  sure, 
but  once  in  awhile."  The  final  clause  in 
this  extract  is  so  puerile  that  one  can 
hardly  believe  that  it  is  written  by  a  sane 
man.  He  traces  the  cause  to  adverse  con- 
ditions: when  little  girls  of  preparatory 
schools  and  schools  of  music  are  mingled 
with  the  college  students,  and  given  the 
same  freedom,  and  where  young  women 
are  forced  to  rent  parlors  and  "  garrets  " 
in  houses  of  an  unsympathetic  village. 
But  the  facts  do  not  bear  President  Jor- 
[222] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

dan  out.  Where  do  the  young  women 
students  always  come  from  if  not  from 
the  preparatory  school,  and  in  both  the 
Northwestern  University  and  at  Syracuse 
the  social  disorders  originated  in  the  dor- 
mitories. President  Jordan's  attitude 
toward  this  question  is  not  that  of  a  Chris- 
tian gentleman.  To  confess  the  possibility 
of  such  an  evil  to  a  girl  because  she  is  poor 
and  is  living  in  a  "  garret "  is  grossly  un- 
just. It  is  an  insult  to  the  great  army  of 
young  women,  who  are  poor  and  live  in 
"  garrets,"  and  yet  so  live  with  soul  un- 
sullied, pure  in  body  and  in  mind.  This 
is  only  another  instance  of  the  weak,  silly, 
and  flippant  manner  that  the  advocates 
of  coeducation  use  in  treating  the  serious 
problems  involved  in  their  method. 

The  chancellor  of  Syracuse  University 
furnishes  the  next  item  of  evidence.  He 
refers  to  it  in  the  simple,  manly  way  that 
is  characteristic.  He  does  not  explain  it, 
he  offers  no  insult  to  a  student  because 
[223] 


WOMAN'S  UNFITNESS 

she  rooms  in  a  "  garret,"  he  makes  no 
statement  whether  the  instances  are  rare 
or  otherwise;  we  simply  know  that  the 
evil  exists  and  is  punished.  He  is  speak- 
ing of  the  disciplinary  practice  of  the  in- 
stitution. "It  is  never  the  practice  to 
dismiss  a  student  for  a  single  act,  unless 
it  be  immorality."  (Syracuse  Evening 
Herald,  February  4,  1903.) 

With  an  entire  lack  of  the  fitness  of 
things  on  the  part  of  an  ardent  coeduca- 
tional advocate,  Prof.  E.  E.  Slosson  places 
the  blame  for  the  social  evil  in  mixed  col- 
leges upon  the  women  alone.  He  says: 
'  There  are  girls  who  are  not  fit  to  be 
sent  to  a  coeducational  college;  who  get 
harm  and  who  do  harm.  When  such  are 
detected,  the  president  usually  invites 
them  into  his  private  office  and  gives  them 
the  same  advice  that  Hamlet  gave  to 
Ophelia."  (The  Independent.)  With 
rare  tact  he  attempts  to  propitiate  the 
mothers  of  these  erring  daughters,  by  add- 
[224] 


FOR  HIGHER  COEDUCATION 

ing  that  in  fairness  he  ought  to  state  that 
these  cases  are  not  often  congenital. 

The  friends  of  coeducation  may  answer 
that  such  instances  occur  in  the  same  class 
outside  of  college  life.  This  is  true;  but 
is  not  the  answer  a  fatal  objection?  If  it 
is  a  recognized  evil,  as  it  certainly  is,  what 
precautions  have  they  taken  to  render  the 
evil  impossible  in  college  life?  In  what 
way  have  young  men  and  women  been 
safeguarded  against  moral  contamination? 
This  is  what  good  government  and  clean 
society  demand.  The  authorities  of  mixed 
colleges  must  come  up  to  the  moral  stand- 
ard of  the  best  homes  in  the  communities 
in  which  they  exist.  They  must  prove  that 
they  do  so,  and  that  their  system  of  mixed 
education  contains  methods  of  supervision, 
direction,  and  suppression  in  matter  of 
character  and  morals,  otherwise  society 
will  suppress  them  in  the  interest  of  good 
government. 

THE  END. 

[225] 


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